Review of Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton

Release Date: Feb. 22, 2011
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 288 pages
Author Website: Kelly Keaton
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: 2.5 stars
Source: Library

Goodreads Summary: Ari can’t help feeling lost and alone. With teal eyes and freakish silver hair that can’t be changed or destroyed, Ari has always stood out. And after growing up in foster care, she longs for some understanding of where she came from and who she is.

Her search for answers uncovers just one message from her long dead mother: Run. Ari can sense that someone, or something, is getting closer than they should. But it’s impossible to protect herself when she doesn’t know what she’s running from or why she is being pursued.

She knows only one thing: she must return to her birthplace of New 2, the lush rebuilt city of New Orleans. Upon arriving, she discovers that New 2 is very...different. Here, Ari is seemingly normal. But every creature she encounters, no matter how deadly or horrifying, is afraid of her.

Ari won’t stop until she knows why. But some truths are too haunting, too terrifying, to ever be revealed.

Review:  Greek mythology seems to be the new black. Not that I’m complaining, I love books with myth and I have been reading a lot of them lately. Darkness Becomes Her, Kelly Keaton’s debut novel, has an interesting mix of paranormal creatures that I don’t often see in YA books.

Ari is a sympathetic character. She is a foster kid who has been a hard life. She is smart and tough and very faithful to her current foster family and friends. Ari is very likable and you can really feel her pain for the injustice that has been done to her. While Sebastian is hot and I can see why Ari was attracted to him, I didn’t get the insta-relationship that they had. They met and were arguing and then a page later they were making out. Sebastian’s character was not fully developed and while that may happen in upcoming sequels, I feel like I need to know more about him now.

I knew there was profanity in the book prior to reading it, I guess I just was not prepared for how much of it there was. My other complaint is that the mysteries of the book, the information that Ari was so desperate to find out, were a bit predictable. I was disappointed when I was able to guess them early on. Additionally, be aware, there are warlocks, a voodoo priest and some voodoo rituals in the book and I know some people are sensitive to those elements.

There are some cool things about the book that I did enjoy. Ms. Keaton’s take on mythology and how the characters are portrayed are original. The story is set New 2 which is New Orleans as it has been rebuilt after two powerful hurricanes destroyed it. New 2 is as important an element in the book as the characters. Ms. Keaton takes care to describe the city in a lush, beautiful way, makes me want to visit.  

Content: Heavy profanity and violence