The Dead and the Dark - Real and Fantastical Horror
Here I am, once again ignoring my personal rule of “no more reading spooky books set in a forest” and diving headfirst into The Dead and The Dark by Courtney Gould. While this debut YA novel isn’t set right in the middle of a forest—it takes place in the small, rural town of Snakebite, Oregon—the characters spend a lot of time walking through forested areas and visiting a strange, dilapidated cabin in the woods.
Before we get too far into this one, here are the trigger/content warnings for this book: homophobia, homophobic slurs, on page death, murder, attempted murder, and death of a child.
The Dead and The Dark follows our main character, Logan, and her two dads, who have their own ghost hunting TV show. Sounds good, right? Who doesn’t want to tag along on an adventure with ghost hunters? Well, Logan doesn’t. While she has a great relationship with one of her dads, her relationship with the other is incredibly strained. They can’t even be in the same room together, so when her family packs up and heads to the small town of Snakebite, she wants to be anywhere else in the world.
What happens in Snakebite is a bit all over the place. We have ghost hunters allegedly scouting for their upcoming season, locals mourning the recent death of a local teenager, and Logan teaming up with a girl named Ashley to find out what really happened to her boyfriend. It’s all a bit scattered and hard to keep track of, but it works.
Residents of the small town don’t know what’s going on, Logan doesn’t know what secrets her dads are keeping from her, and us as readers are equally confused.
Snakebite is hiding cold, dark secrets, and it’s only a matter of time until everything is brought up to the surface.
While paranormal events and creatures seem to be popping up in every corner, so too do very real-life horrors of facing prejudice and violence for being your true self, and standing up for who you are and what you believe in. I’ll admit, the homophobia in this book seemed like a bit much at times (especially as an LGBTQ+ reader), but as someone who grew up in a small town, it unfortunately wasn’t that far off.
Overall, The Dead and The Dark proved to be an enjoyable debut. It has twists and turns, unexplained occurrences, dark secrets, and while the twist was somewhat predictable, it also had a pinch of tenderness to round out a book that was otherwise full of doom and gloom.
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