A review by annietaber
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

The core idea of this book is cool: dark vs light, keepers of the old ways, and the power of the land and places; but the execution was a letdown. Characters appeared and acted with no apparent motivations, yet an understanding of some character development was assumed (told not shown vibes). Also, the whole magic system was so underdeveloped.

Every now and then, Will will be like, “oh and I had forgotten that I had such and such magical power,” or Merriman will say, “remember that you have this power” and Will is like, ah, of course, now I can fly!

Jumping between time is normally a classic fav for me, but here it was clumsy. The pacing on this was also weird. Some chapters flew by and days would pass in the timeline and others were perhaps too long and the pace of action would slow.

And how does it make any sense that five Old Ones were living in one teeny village in the UK and they just so happened to be the ones needed to hold back the Dark and find the other Signs (which also happen to be in the village in the UK)

I just couldn’t ever fully buy into this