Title: What Grows in the Dark
Author: Jaq Evans
Publisher: Harper Collins (Mira)
Date Published: March 5, 2024
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
REVIEW
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this from NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Judging from the other reviews, I am clearly in the minority in that I didn't quite enjoy reading this. There were a few things that were done well, however. I thought the main character, Brigit was really well written. They were distant and seemingly uncaring about anything, which made them unlikeable, but not in a bad way. Rather, it felt very purposeful and their actions made sense when looking at their past history. I also thought there were some very good descriptive scenes throughout. The author did a good job of describing Brigit's hallucinations so those scenes were easy to visualize and were rather eerie.
However, the rest of the book was not enjoyable for me. The plot too way too long to get going, for one. We open in a fake séance, which led me to believe that this would be a fast-paced book, but then nothing really happens until about 35% of the way into the book. There were a few hallucinations within those chapters, but a majority of it, both Ian and Brigit spend collecting information and exploring the town. I also didn't enjoy Ian's chapters nearly as much and felt like this book would have been better with just one POV.
The pacing is another thing I had issues with. Once things did start to pick up, they didn't stay that way. Something would happen, then there would be a big lull. Then the next thing, and another lull, and so on. This made the plot feel very jumbled and thrown together rather than well thought out. It also made me want to put the book down many times as I got bored. That's never a good thing, in my opinion. It also never hit that horror feel, and felt far more like a thriller to me. Overall, this book did have some strengths but they were overshadowed by the many things I didn't like about it.
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