Wen-yi Lee

The Dark We Know

i can’t get these characters and this story out of my head

emily

Thank you to NetGalley and Gillian Flynn books for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I saw one of Wen-yi Lee's tweets about this book being inspired by Spring Awakening a couple weeks ago and immediately requested it on NetGalley and added it to my TBR. I'm a big fan of haunted narratives, characters, and hometowns and this book absolutely captivated me from the start. It's not just haunting though; it's intimate, painful, jarring, full of grief, and a little unsettling in the best way. Lee's writing style absolutely lends itself to these feelings, and there are some beautiful, lyrical reflections on the self, family, and relationships threaded throughout the horror and mystery aspect. This book is tearing open old scabs of childhood memories and pain, haunting imagery, weird ghosts and angels, and navigating grief and horror. While horror has a tendency to be viewed as needing to be at the edge of your seat and waiting for a scare, Lee does a great job of building the tension slowly, and showing us that horror isn't always big scares, but can be something more overarching and a slow burn that leaves you aching to know what's going on and how it will be resolved.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gillian Flynn books for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I saw one of Wen-yi Lee's tweets about this book being inspired by Spring Awakening a couple weeks ago and immediately requested it on NetGalley and added it to my TBR. I'm a big fan of haunted narratives, characters, and hometowns and this book absolutely captivated me from the start. It's not just haunting though; it's intimate, painful, jarring, full of grief, and a little unsettling in the best way. Lee's writing style absolutely lends itself to these feelings, and there are some beautiful, lyrical reflections on the self, family, and relationships threaded throughout the horror and mystery aspect. This book is tearing open old scabs of childhood memories and pain, haunting imagery, weird ghosts and angels, and navigating grief and horror. While horror has a tendency to be viewed as needing to be at the edge of your seat and waiting for a scare, Lee does a great job of building the tension slowly, and showing us that horror isn't always big scares, but can be something more overarching and a slow burn that leaves you aching to know what's going on and how it will be resolved.

hello! since ARCs are starting to go out i'll make myself scarce here but i wanted to update this note to give a content heads up

THE DARK WE KNOW is inspired by the play Spring Awakening, which means the town sucks, all the families kind of suck, and all the kids are somewhat messed up. content warnings for suicidal ideation & suicide, grief and depression, references to self-harm, pregnancy scare anxiety (side character/not main plot), domestic abuse, body horror, religious trauma (+ general trauma) and repressive environment. 

but there's also: 
- estranged friends who come back for each other and remember childhood imagination/innocence
- hope, healing, connection, and breaking cycles
- the power of art for expressing things without words
- spring awakening x hadestown x taylor swift’s ‘seven’ with queer subtext in everything being text (let me write the essay about those plays using seasons as metaphors for better futures to come-)
- ghosts and the power of memory
- asian mom and daughters navigate fraught relationship

writing this book helped me at a time that i needed it; i hope you enjoy it.

The Dark We Know

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