I finished All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker recently and honestly, I couldn’t put it down. It’s a long book, and because of that, it’s intimidating. But when I tell you the writing is so poetic and paints the most incredible pictures, I mean it, and the length of the book is worth it. Plus, the chapters are short, so it reads quickly.

This book is part crime/thriller, it has romance, it has friendship/family dynamics. I mean, it’s got it all. Aside from the big bad guy in the book, I loved every single character. The character development is incredibly strong here, too.

Patch and Saint are two kids growing up in a Missouri town in the 1970s. When girls start disappearing, everyone is on edge, and  after Patch saves one of the girls, their lives are forever impacted. The book follows Patch, Saint, and some of the other townspeople through the rest of their lives – the decisions they make, the things they gain and what they lose along the way.

Parts of this book were hard to read (for content warnings you can check here) – at one point I asked myself, “Is anything good ever gonna happen to this poor kid?!” But the story is one of redemption, of hope, of life lived in the pursuit of goodness and sacrifice for others. What a beautiful story, and one I think I might actually want to pick up again.

xoxo,

Jenise

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Get it from your local bookseller here.