Judging by the cover of Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton you would think it was strictly a vampire story, however, you would be wrong. Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton blends paranormal, Greek mythology, dystopia, and romance into a neat little package.
Ari Selkirk has teal colored eyes and silver hair, so she’s weird looking. Bounced from foster home to foster home, her otherworldly looks attract the wrong kind of attention. As you can guess, Ari’s birth harbors a secret. To discover the hidden meaning behind her birth and her mother’s suicide, she must go to New 2 – which is New Orleans, but was completely destroyed by hurricanes – now a paranormal haven. Along the way, she makes friends with a rag-tag group of orphans, including Violet who can talk to alligators, and Crank a 12 year old girl who runs the mail out of New 2. She also, of course, finds a love interest in Sebastian, a dude with some weird powers.
Honestly, Ari could give Rose Hathaway a run for her money. She is completely kick ass. She has a gun and can work a knife. Plus she acts exactly how I would in a situation and says things like ‘fuck my life’, and yes she isn’t pristine and actually uses swears like every teenager I have ever met in my life. Also, Ari is self deprecating. She is so much fun to read about, and I would kind of like her reactions to daily life, because, yo it is awesome.
But, what drags Darkness Becomes Her down is the insta-love. I mean, Sebastian is a cool character, don’t get me wrong. He’s also not a giant steaming bag of douche. However, I felt like their love was never really given the time to develop properly. I mean literally, they knew each other for what two days, they go see some voodoo guy and bam, they are making out. Yeah, that’s not how relationships work. That’s how hook ups work. And, well, I just think the book would have been much stronger had the characters actually taken the time to get to know each other, and I don’t know form a relationship based on mutual interests and chemistry, and not oh you are sooo hot let’s kiss for a bit.
I will say that was the only thing I disliked Darkness Becomes Her. I think Kelly Keaton did a great job with keeping the story unpredictable. Certain events and plot points came out of left field, which I thought was fresh and new. I love it when a book is not all just one thing. I enjoy the fact that Darkness Becomes Her can be paranormal and dystopic at the same time.
In all, Darkness Becomes Her is decent if you like a ton of action. However, if you are turned off by insta-love, I would say it might be worth your while to wait until the sequel comes out, and read some reviews to find out if the romance actually develops. Then, if it does, read the two books.
Disclosure: Received for review.
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Great review of this book, I am really looking forward to reading it!!! It sounds so cool!