A review by nelemon
The Dark by Emma Haughton

4.0

I wasn’t sure if I liked this book or not for the longest time, but I ended up really enjoying it! 

First of all, the setting is great. I’ll say it again: I love snowy settings, I love an isolated location murder mystery, I love survival stories, and this book had all of those things. Shit going down on a research station in Antarctica during winter? Sign me up right now! This was a huge plus point going towards me liking this. 

A few things did bother me at first. Although I did get a feel for the different characters the more I got into the story, the skeleton crew staying for the winter season was introduced in like one paragraph (it’s like twelve people) and stuff like that stresses me out, makes me feel like I have to take notes. 

I also couldn’t really warm up to the main character. She was just kind of meh to me. Although she does have her backstory and baggage and stuff, I still found her a little too bland. It was also kind of funny how she was so bummed out when the crew didn’t welcome her as enthusiastically as she would have liked, when she literally is only there as a replacement for a crew member who died. Pretty obvious that some people would feel conflicted about her being there. Anyways! 

There were also some things where she acted super unprofessionally, and didn’t get the most obvious things which was frustrating. She’s also weirdly sensitive about marijuana for someone abusing much stronger drugs herself. But to be honest she really came into herself towards the end and became a little more interesting to follow. 

In general, I really started liking this book during the second half once shit stars going down. Thing after thing starts happening and it got quite dramatic at times, but I loved it, I was on the edge of my seat for the last hundred pages or so when things really go in survival mode! 

I will admit it’s not too hard guessing the culprit, and I found the motive reveal a little… if not unbelievable, at was definitely weird. But I didn’t mind that because I enjoyed the overall ride. 

I also liked that there were a few instances where the non-native speakers didn’t understand certain English phrases and asked for clarification. It is a small pet peeve of mine when on an international crew everyone miraculously speaks perfect English including slang and idioms. I really liked that the book did that differently. 

This was a fun isolated location thriller! 
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