Wen-yi Lee’s The Dark We Know follows Isadora Chang, an art student who left her small hometown after the deaths of two of her best friends. Two years later, she returns for the funeral of her abusive father, where she encounters her last surviving friend, Mason. Mason tells her that he suspects their friends were in fact murdered by some sort of supernatural being that haunts their town, and he needs her help to stop it from killing anyone else.
In the acknowledgments, as well as on social media, Wen-yi Lee said her inspirations for this book were her love for the Deaf West production of Spring Awakening and the Taylor Swift lyric “are there still beautiful things?” And having now read this book, yeah. Those were her inspirations, very clearly.
I have to be honest: I don’t really care for Spring Awakening, but I do like that Taylor Swift lyric, and I loved this book. It is exactly the kind of horror I love—queer, more emotional than scary, the haunting is real but also a metaphor, and exactly the kind of retelling I have the most success wity—queer, inspired by something I have enough familiarity with to recognize the references but not so much love for that I get frustrated when the author’s interpretation of something is different than mine. (Yes, this isn’t technically a retelling, but, like, it’s definitely fanfiction, and I mean that as a compliment, or at least a neutral statement. I am a fanfiction defender until the day I die).
Now onto the book itself. First of all, I loved the writing. There were so many quotes I wanted to underline because they hit me so hard, and so many others that were just beautiful. The ending was passages upon passages I wanted seared into my soul.
The characters were just as lovely. Isa, the protagonist, is exactly the kind of YA protagonist I want to see more of: an angry queer teenage girl who is doing her best and doesn’t always manage it, but who keeps trying. Watching her navigate her strained relationships with her mother, her sister, and Mason—not to mention the deceased Zach and Wren, on whom Isa once had a crush—could have kept me reading even without any of the supernatural mystery elements.
I also appreciated that, though Isa had little love left for the town or the people in it, the book still managed to maintain some sympathy for them. There were horrible people, and there were flawed people, misled people, but there were no caricatures, no sense that they deserved whatever happened to them and they should simply be left to suffer—but nor were they absolved of any wrongdoing simply because they had suffered too. This book managed to balance the desire to extend sympathy and forgiveness while also making it clear that sympathy is not always enough to actually earn forgiveness, and while I love books that manage to strike that balance in general, I think it matters even more in YA.
Now, I don’t want to go too in depth about the ending, but I do want to say that this book absolutely nails it, and my love for it would not be nearly so strong if it had been anything but what it was. This book was so, so beautiful, and I’m so glad I read it. If you’re a fan of emotional YA horror, this should absolutely be on your list.
