Book Review - Darkness Becomes Her

Darkness Becomes Her
Author: Kelly Keaton
Series: Gods and Monsters #1
Genres: Paranormal, Fantasy, Mythology | Young Adult
Release Date: 22nd Febuary 2011
Publishers: Simon Pulse
No. Pages: 320
Source: Purchased
Rating: 
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Ari can't help feeling lost and alone. With teal eyes and freakish silver hair that can't be changed or destroyed, Ari has always stood out. And after growing up in foster care, she longs for some understanding of where she came from and who she is. Her search for answers uncovers just one message from her long dead mother: Run. Ari can sense that someone, or something, is getting closer than they should. But it's impossible to protect herself when she doesn't know what she's running from or why she is being pursued.

She knows only one thing: she must return to her birthplace of New 2, the lush rebuilt city of New Orleans. Upon arriving, she discovers that New 2 is very - different. Here, Ari is seemingly normal. But every creature she encounters, no matter how deadly or horrifying, is afraid of her. Ari won't stop until she knows why. But some truths are too haunting, too terrifying, to ever be revealed.

Darkness Becomes Her is a book with an equal amount of negatives and positives and in the time I've been reading reviewing books, I've never comes across a book as such. Normally a book sways in one direction from one feature or another, but what was good in this novel was really quite good, but was not good was really quite cringey. Expectations and hopes made this book a little disappointing, the broad range of subjects covered and the mixing of paranormal and mythology was a little confusing and dysfunctional, yet as a whole, after the disappointment that was Immortal Rules, Darkness Becomes Her picked me back up into reading.

So what were some of the features that frustrated me most? It was quick, in almost every way shape and form. Now I'm more than okay with short books, but I mean, there's short and sweet and short and 'woah, slow down, you met him three hours ago' and I only wish I was stretching the truth but I'm not. We're introduced to Ari at a hospital where she's looking for facts on her Mother, turns out her Mother is dead, so Ari then makes a decision to make a journey to one of the last places her Mother was, New 2, which is, as you would expect, run down and a mess down to hurricanes that hit years ago. There she meets some misfit teenagers descendants from magical, talented and well off people and creatures of the night, vampires, witches and so much more. Throw in a very angry, very narky and very vicious Athena and a romance quicker than lightning and that's your story. There's no stable world that I can physically imagine myself in, nor is the writing that strong or seductive in keeping me involved within the read, so a high level of enjoyment was never going to be something this novel had, however, when the romance wasn't in my face or the story too quick and paced awkwardly, there was one very big feature that I seriously adored, and that, was the mythology.

Anybody who knows me knows I enjoy things mythology based. I've seen my fair share of Hades romance stories, Helen of Troy retellings but one of the stories very few authors attempt to delve into is the story of Medusa and that's where the minor spoilers come in. I will do my utmost to avoid any big spoilers, but Darkness Becomes Her really uses what knowledge there is of the Medusa story and adapts it brilliantly, using Athenas attitudes as the Goddess of War, using the curse and throwing in a usual fantasy 'when you turn 21', Keaton really makes this story her own, creating a dark alluring feel to the story even though the story itself isn't as strong as it could be and it really does appeal to mythology fans like me. Sadly, not enough time and effort was spent on this feature I feel and the biggest issue I had with this was that the book therefore wasn't long enough. As I've already stated, everything in this novel took place in a short amount of time and was extremely quick, yet if the book were a little longer, the world building in New 2 could have been stronger, the character development could have been larger, the romance could have been realistic and the mythology based features could have been developed and made to compliment the paranormal features rather than have them clashing an awful lot.

It sounds as though I disliked this novel, but that's not the case. From a reading experience, it was quick, easy to read and enjoyable, but there were issues that really don't make this book one I would recommend unless you enjoy quick romance and a story with very little explanation. Will I continue the series? Right now, I'm not sure, but for a very cheap buy, I can't say I regret the purchase, nor do I regret trying out a retelling of Medusa - she's one of my favourite of the myths and not very many stories focusing on mythology, so I will definitely be looking out for myths based on her. I wouldn't recommend you go out and try this novel, but if you're confident you'll enjoy it, take the chance.