Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah

 

WHERE DARKNESS BLOOMS snagged my eye immediately with that haunting cover art. With god as my witness, I will never pass up creepygirl lit. Ever. In fact, that's how you'll know that I've been made into a pod person. You'll be like, "Hey, Nenia, want to read some creepygirl lit?" And Pod Nenia will be like, "Ew, no."

Set in the small Kansas town of Bishop, our story has three primary narrators: Whitney, Bo, and Delilah. They're all friends, united by their tragedy: two years ago, on the night of a bonfire, all three of their mothers went missing. In a town filled with sunflowers, and shaded by dark legacies, they're all three certain that something is rotten in Bishop. Something dangerous.

Something that might spell out death.

I powered through this in a day. It's a marvelous small town horror novel with culty vibes and feminist themes. However, it is a flawed read. All three girls sound pretty similar to each other and the story takes forEVER to pick up steam. It starts to become a really strong story in the middle/towards the end, although the ending was dragged out more than necessary. It honestly feels more like a debut than the work of a seasoned author, though according to the author's note, it sounded like this might be her first book after a long break, so in that case, it kind of is like a debut, I guess. Getting back into writing again after a long hiatus can be hard.

Honestly, I would recommend this to people who loved STARLINGS by Amanda Linsmeier and WHAT WE HARVEST by Ann Fraistat. Same vibes. In fact, do yourself a favor and just binge all three, back to back. Have yourself a creepygirl summer. You deserve it, babe.

I will never look at sunflowers the same way.

3 to 3.5 out of 5 stars