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Summary and Reviews of The Dark We Know by Wen-yi Lee

The Dark We Know by Wen-yi Lee

The Dark We Know

by Wen-yi Lee
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • First Published:
  • Aug 13, 2024, 336 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

From Gillian Flynn Books, a lyrical young adult horror by debut author Wen-yi Lee that's perfect for fans of She Is a Haunting, Stephen King's IT, and The Haunting of Hill House.

Growing up in Slater, Isadora Chang never felt at ease in the repressive small town, even before she realized she was bisexual―but after the deaths of two childhood friends, Slater went from feeling claustrophobic to suffocating. So, Isa took off before the town could swallow her, too. Even though it meant leaving everything she knew behind, including her last surviving friend, Mason.

When Isa's abusive father dies, however, she agrees to come back from art school just long enough to collect the inheritance. But then Mason turns up at the cemetery with a revelation and a plea: their friends were murdered by an evil that haunts the town, and he needs Isa to help stop it―before it takes anyone else.

When Isa begins to hear strange songs on the wind, and eerie artwork fills her sketchbook that she can't recall drawing, she's forced to stop running and confront her past. Because something is waiting in the shadows of Slater's valleys, something that feeds on the pain and heartbreak of its children. Whatever it is, it knows Isa's back ... and it won't let her escape again.

Wen-yi Lee's young adult debut is an intimate and gripping exploration of trauma, healing, and the lasting power of friendship, as a runaway teen must finally face the sinister forces that defined her childhood, and in doing so, demand her right to survive.

Excerpt
The Dark We Know

I've never liked being home. I was always elsewhere, outdoors or being taken in by the Carvers or the Tais. As a kid that made me "social" and "adventurous." Later it started making me an "ungrateful child who treated her parents' house like it was hers to come and go from."

Art students eat up a shitty-parent backstory. You're not even an art student if you don't have some kind of trauma to mine. Here, though, my childhood stops feeling like a party trick. On the left is the bathroom, door the same rusty color Trish taught me to scrub out of my sheets the first time I woke up with blood between my legs. Opposite is Trish's room, then mine, and at the very end is the bedroom I never entered, where my parents slept. The hallway is suffocating, especially because the vinegar smell is thick here, and the air's staler than it should be. I finally let myself think something's wrong. But the smell seems to be coming from everywhere.

With the lock taken off a long time ...

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Isadora returns from art school to Slater, the mining town where she grew up, to attend the funeral of her abusive father, and it's immediately clear that she doesn't relish this homecoming: as soon as she steps out of the car, she refers to "Slater winter smothering me like a friend," a nice bit of description that says a lot about how she feels about Slater and even more about how she feels about friends. There is no shortage of narratives about trauma these days — especially horror narratives — and the broad strokes of this story may seem a bit familiar at first glance. And sometimes Lee bluntly states something that could have been made richer with imagery ("for most of our childhood, the four of us were inseparable") or gives her characters on-the-nose dialogue ("I can't afford to be not normal"). What she excels at, though, is something just as important: the well-chosen detail. The absence of a Bible on the mantelpiece represents how the house breathes easier without a malignant father. A lingering scent suggests his influence hasn't gone away as quickly as Isa, her mother, and her sister hoped it would...continued

Full Review Members Only (509 words)

(Reviewed by Joe Hoeffner).

Media Reviews

Reactor
The Dark We Know aptly captures the way small towns can feel like a trap, especially for a queer person of color amongst a white, heteronormative population, and how the ties of trauma still bind us no matter how far we try to run. Lee writes with incredible emotional depth to tell a story that will grab at your heart and leave ghostly fingerprints in its wake.

Booklist (starred review)
Readers will find thrills, chills, and emotional validation from this unexpectedly almost-heartwarming horror novel.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
This debut transcends the supernatural mystery genre with its emotional depth and engaging setting. As a contemplative alternative to action-focused horror, its striking explorations of grief, shame, love, and queerness will haunt readers with how true they ring ... A powerful, introspective gothic tale filled to the brim with horror.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In this enthralling horror debut, Lee carefully threads together Isa's reconnecting with her past, unearthing the secrets that Slater is built on, and navigating the way that shame distorts one's sense of self.

Author Blurb Andrew Joseph White, New York Times bestselling author of The Spirit Bares Its Teeth and Hell Followed With Us
The Dark We Know is a book made of shattered rock, claustrophobic family pressure, and the desperation of children trying to survive the weight of their grief. An eerie, introspective, and beautifully atmospheric addition to the best of YA horror lit.

Author Blurb Courtney Summers, New York Times bestselling author of I'm the Girl and Sadie
The true hallmark of an exceptional horror novel is in its hold, and in her debut outing, Wen-yi Lee has crafted a gorgeously dark and unforgettable story that will linger long after the book is closed. The Dark We Know heralds the arrival of a rare and exciting literary talent―do not miss it.

Author Blurb Trang Thanh Tran, New York Times bestselling author of She is a Haunting
A knife-sharp excavation into the horrors of societal judgment. Lee has crafted an ultimately hopeful story about grief and pain among friends all a little in love with each other. The Dark We Know left me breathless.

Reader Reviews

A Beman

a literary thriller about a comet, obsession, and a small Australian town
Set in a small town in Australia, and loosely inspired by the Heaven’s Gate cult and Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997, this debut novel is about a young woman still reeling from the hit-and-run death of her beloved husband. Written as a literary thriller, ...   Read More

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Beyond the Book



Slate Mining in America

Color photograph of Bangor, Pennsylvania as seen from the surrounding hills, with photo centered on a large brick building surrounded by trees and rooftops What does one name a fictional small town that once served as a hub for slate mining before its inevitable decline? Well, Slater, of course. In her novel The Dark We Know, Wen-yi Lee describes it as "an old mining town sunk in a crater at the end of the road with nowhere to go beyond it but down." Isadora Chang dreads returning there for reasons beyond post-industrial malaise, but the town's condition certainly doesn't help: it is is only kept afloat by the support of the wealthy Vandersteens, and even then just barely.

Lee never explicitly states where in the United States Slater is located, but a little knowledge of the American slate mining industry helps narrow it down. In the 19th century, slate was commonly made into roofing ...

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