Andrea Hannah

Where Darkness Blooms

kelsey

i skimmed a lot of this book… the premise is nice and the prologue was good but the book was very predictable and there was so many plot holes

A murderous town, missing women, sentient sunflowers, bloodthirsty soil, and shady men who know a lot more than they are letting on. A thriller-y story about 4 girls left when their mothers, like so many women in their town, have gone missing, and everything they are willing to do, to not end up the same. CW: Sexual assault, mention of and then mild description of (being told about to another character) r*pe, violence against women, confinement of women, stalking.  

Apiecalypse Jen

I 100% downloaded this book because of the cover.

If you are thinking of doing this, there are a few things to note.

Mainly, the covers amazing emotion and darkness falls short in the book.

I really wanted to love this book, the premise is a deep emotional one to explore.

The plot had high stakes, and has so much potential to be one of those riveting books that makes you ponder big ideas, and cry hard from the ending. But it just doesn't. Which makes me sad.

That being said, it's not a bad book. It is just muted. If you enjoy strong female characters you're going to enjoy this story. The story brings strong woman from all walks of life together.

I won't say that it's character driven because there is a lot left on the table in that regards. So many motivations that weren't explored, and fall outs left for the reader to assume about. Especially the ending. All the questions were answered, I just wanted more. Especially with the potential trauma, and aftermath, it was just all okay.

I don't regret reading it, I liked it. Just was hoping for more.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

Sabetha Danes

I 100% downloaded this book because of the cover.

If you are thinking of doing this, there are a few things to note.
Mainly, the covers amazing emotion and darkness falls short in the book.

I really wanted to love this book, the premise is a deep emotional one to explore.
The plot had high stakes, and has so much potential to be one of those riveting books that makes you ponder big ideas, and cry hard from the ending. But it just doesn't. Which makes me sad.

That being said, it's not a bad book. It is just muted. If you enjoy strong female characters you're going to enjoy this story. The story brings strong woman from all walks of life together.

I won't say that it's character driven because there is a lot left on the table in that regards. So many motivations that weren't explored, and fall outs left for the reader to assume about. Especially the ending. All the questions were answered, I just wanted more. Especially with the potential trauma, and aftermath, it was just all okay.

I don't regret reading it, I liked it. Just was hoping for more.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

 focuses on four girls--Delilah, Bo, Whitney, and Jude, trying to figure out what happened to their mothers, who disappeared 2 years earlier. In doing so, they discover that women mysteriously go missing in Bishop and the girls take it upon themselves to find out the truth.

I wanted to love this book. I truly did. I love a creepy small town vibe with paranormal elements. But this book had so many flaws and inconsistencies that it wasn't enjoyable. 

There's a fair amount of diversity--a Latina main character, lesbian MC, two sapphic LIs, and diverse side characters/townspeople. I also enjoyed the girls' friendships, although we don't see how exactly these bonds were forged beyond living together, and the strife within their friend group doesn't make sense at the beginning.

All four girls' POVs read the same way, and the only way to differentiate them was to remember the chapter number (the book cycled through the four in the same order, no complaint there) or the general plotline of each girl. Personality-wise, they all seemed the same because their personalities felt underdeveloped. 

In terms of plot, the underlying plot of a curse in a small town was really interesting, but all of the moving parts solely created confusion and did not enhance the plot. A list of examples:

-Timeline: When everything happened is confusing--That Night seems to refer to several nights which defeats the purpose of there being "That Night." Unless I'm missing something, which is fully possible because of the lack of clarity.

-Lack of exposition. Normally this isn't a huge problem, in media res is a thing, but since the plot goes from 0 to 60 at the 60% mark, at that point, the reader still doesn't have a baseline or enough information to piece together the underlying story before being thrown into the action despite ample time to do so. 

-Inconsistencies: When Whitney and Eleanor started dating is very confusing--it sounds like they met the night of the bonfire, but Whitney's mom was aware of Eleanor and wanted to meet her?  And then immediately after the bonfire Eleanor dies? It was very unclear how their relationship developed and there was no reason to be emotionally invested in them beyond a surface level. 

-Psychic powers?? Suddenly the girls seem to have psychic powers? Delilah is a Bloom, whatever that means, but it isn't ever explained beyond one sentence by the villain. Bo can talk to sunflowers or communicate through them? But it's really the telephone of the afterlife? And she also apparently can't die?? I couldn't tell what was metaphor and what was reality. Whitney doesn't seem to have much in terms of power except maybe communicating with the wind like her twin. And Jude can talk to the wind? Which is just an extension of the villain? If these powers were more fleshed out and utilized more, especially Delilah's identity as a Bloom, it would be more compelling and less confusing. Perhaps a plot point could be figuring out which one was a Bloom.

-Mother Abandonment: At the end, it's revealed that Indigo, Ava, and Cori (the girls' moms) escaped the town because they realized that one of them would be next and that the villains realized that they figured out what was happening. However, this doesn't make any sense, as these mothers (with the slight exception of Indigo) are incredibly dedicated to their daughters--why wouldn't they take their daughters with them? Instead they abandon them in a town that will inevitably target them with no information to help the girls. Even if they knew the girls were supposed to be the ones to break the curse (which makes no sense-this idea doesn't come up until the girls are forced to confront the villains), it's hard to believe these moms, who gave their all to their daughters, would simply abandon them and hope for the best. For 2 years. They knew another girl/woman was taken and sacrificed every six months--that's enough time for all of their daughters to be sacrificed. And only Cori half heartedly tried to get back to her daughter? Terrible mother awards all around.

-Medical inconsistencies: Whitney passes out, but then in the next chapter Jude says she can tell Whitney is conscious. Even if this was a twin telepathy sort of thing, Jude emphasizes that they don't have that multiple times throughout the story. At the end of the story, Jude is shot in the leg--why didn't the sunflowers save her like they did Delilah? Even if it was because she was too far away, how come she never goes to a hospital once she escapes? At the end, Jude's bullet wound never makes a reappearance after its removal and (likely unsterile) suturing up by Alma. 

-Deeper subjects relegated to surface-level: SA and police brutality as plot points. 

     -The SA of Bo seemed like a way to differentiate her from the others. It did not add anything to the story other than bringing up that Caleb would never face consequences because of who his dad is. It's also unclear why Bo was targeted? Again, this just felt like the author wanted to make an important point but just skimmed the surface of the complexities of SA. I did appreciate the trigger warnings for this at the beginning of the book.

     -Police brutality: Alma is taken by the police for Whitney resisting arrest? And Whitney is concerned about Alma being beaten and harmed because she's Black, but then when Whitney goes to bust her out, Alma is just sitting in a chair perfectly fine? This felt completely unnecessary--while it's important to acknowledge police brutality, Whitney does nothing to try to help her crush and just says that she's worried because of police brutality. It seemed very performative and was brought up for no real reason other than to bring it up? 

-The curse was broken so easily by the semi-not bad guy bad guy, which begs the question, if he knew how to break the curse and was so against getting involved with it, why didn't he break it in the first place? He also got off scot-free as far as I could tell, but his ending is ambiguous. It was an anti-climactic ending that let a man break the curse that was harming women instead of the girls who actually did the heavy lifting and killed the men responsible (except aforementioned semi bad guy bad guy). If this book was meant to be feminist, it failed on that front. 

I don't think this is the worst book ever, I will reiterate that I enjoyed the underlying plot, but there were a lot of moving parts that took away from the potential of this book.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review:)

Holly

Where Darkness Blooms focuses on four girls--Delilah, Bo, Whitney, and Jude, trying to figure out what happened to their mothers, who disappeared 2 years earlier. In doing so, they discover that women mysteriously go missing in Bishop and the girls take it upon themselves to find out the truth.

I wanted to love this book. I truly did. I love a creepy small town vibe with paranormal elements. But this book had so many flaws and inconsistencies that it wasn't enjoyable. 

There's a fair amount of diversity--a Latina main character, lesbian MC, two sapphic LIs, and diverse side characters/townspeople. I also enjoyed the girls' friendships, although we don't see how exactly these bonds were forged beyond living together, and the strife within their friend group doesn't make sense at the beginning.

All four girls' POVs read the same way, and the only way to differentiate them was to remember the chapter number (the book cycled through the four in the same order, no complaint there) or the general plotline of each girl. Personality-wise, they all seemed the same because their personalities felt underdeveloped. 

In terms of plot, the underlying plot of a curse in a small town was really interesting, but all of the moving parts solely created confusion and did not enhance the plot. A list of examples:

-Timeline: When everything happened is confusing--That Night seems to refer to several nights which defeats the purpose of there being "That Night." Unless I'm missing something, which is fully possible because of the lack of clarity.

-Lack of exposition. Normally this isn't a huge problem, in media res is a thing, but since the plot goes from 0 to 60 at the 60% mark, at that point, the reader still doesn't have a baseline or enough information to piece together the underlying story before being thrown into the action despite ample time to do so. 

-Inconsistencies: When Whitney and Eleanor started dating is very confusing--it sounds like they met the night of the bonfire, but Whitney's mom was aware of Eleanor and wanted to meet her?  And then immediately after the bonfire Eleanor dies? It was very unclear how their relationship developed and there was no reason to be emotionally invested in them beyond a surface level. 

-Psychic powers?? Suddenly the girls seem to have psychic powers? Delilah is a Bloom, whatever that means, but it isn't ever explained beyond one sentence by the villain. Bo can talk to sunflowers or communicate through them? But it's really the telephone of the afterlife? And she also apparently can't die?? I couldn't tell what was metaphor and what was reality. Whitney doesn't seem to have much in terms of power except maybe communicating with the wind like her twin. And Jude can talk to the wind? Which is just an extension of the villain? If these powers were more fleshed out and utilized more, especially Delilah's identity as a Bloom, it would be more compelling and less confusing. Perhaps a plot point could be figuring out which one was a Bloom.

-Mother Abandonment: At the end, it's revealed that Indigo, Ava, and Cori (the girls' moms) escaped the town because they realized that one of them would be next and that the villains realized that they figured out what was happening. However, this doesn't make any sense, as these mothers (with the slight exception of Indigo) are incredibly dedicated to their daughters--why wouldn't they take their daughters with them? Instead they abandon them in a town that will inevitably target them with no information to help the girls. Even if they knew the girls were supposed to be the ones to break the curse (which makes no sense-this idea doesn't come up until the girls are forced to confront the villains), it's hard to believe these moms, who gave their all to their daughters, would simply abandon them and hope for the best. For 2 years. They knew another girl/woman was taken and sacrificed every six months--that's enough time for all of their daughters to be sacrificed. And only Cori half heartedly tried to get back to her daughter? Terrible mother awards all around.

-Medical inconsistencies: Whitney passes out, but then in the next chapter Jude says she can tell Whitney is conscious. Even if this was a twin telepathy sort of thing, Jude emphasizes that they don't have that multiple times throughout the story. At the end of the story, Jude is shot in the leg--why didn't the sunflowers save her like they did Delilah? Even if it was because she was too far away, how come she never goes to a hospital once she escapes? At the end, Jude's bullet wound never makes a reappearance after its removal and (likely unsterile) suturing up by Alma. 

-Deeper subjects relegated to surface-level: SA and police brutality as plot points. 

     -The SA of Bo seemed like a way to differentiate her from the others. It did not add anything to the story other than bringing up that Caleb would never face consequences because of who his dad is. It's also unclear why Bo was targeted? Again, this just felt like the author wanted to make an important point but just skimmed the surface of the complexities of SA. I did appreciate the trigger warnings for this at the beginning of the book.

     -Police brutality: Alma is taken by the police for Whitney resisting arrest? And Whitney is concerned about Alma being beaten and harmed because she's Black, but then when Whitney goes to bust her out, Alma is just sitting in a chair perfectly fine? This felt completely unnecessary--while it's important to acknowledge police brutality, Whitney does nothing to try to help her crush and just says that she's worried because of police brutality. It seemed very performative and was brought up for no real reason other than to bring it up? 

-The curse was broken so easily by the semi-not bad guy bad guy, which begs the question, if he knew how to break the curse and was so against getting involved with it, why didn't he break it in the first place? He also got off scot-free as far as I could tell, but his ending is ambiguous. It was an anti-climactic ending that let a man break the curse that was harming women instead of the girls who actually did the heavy lifting and killed the men responsible (except aforementioned semi bad guy bad guy). If this book was meant to be feminist, it failed on that front. 

I don't think this is the worst book ever, I will reiterate that I enjoyed the underlying plot, but there were a lot of moving parts that took away from the potential of this book.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review:)

amelia skinkis

I really thought this was a beautiful, however, it was pretty slow. Not that that is always a bad thing, but for this book, it seemed a little unnecessary. Nevertheless, I did really enjoy this book. I liked the ominous spooky vibes and that fact that the main characters were likable. Another things that other reviewers have also pointed out that I noticed was how confusing it can be to follow all four girls' inner dialogue, along with that their mothers were added in as well so it was tough to remember who was who at times and which mother belonged to which girl and so on. I did think the ending of this book was worth it, even though it took a little while to get there. I think that younger readers would really enjoy this, it's a unique read with an interesting premise.

3.5 stars/5

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an arc. I received this arc free and my review is based on nothing but my own opinions.

Where Darkness Blooms

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