Cover Me in Darkness

Cover Me in Darkness

Eileen Rendahl

 

 *This review is based on an advanced reading copy. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a chance to read the book in exchange for an honest review*

This one is a little hard for me to put into words. I appreciated the intricacy of the mystery, but the writing didn't really capture the desperation of the situation and in the end, it fell flat. I just didn't care enough.

The idea of the book was that the main character, Amanda, gets a call that her mother, who had been locked in a mental ward for life for killing her son, had died (ruled a suicide). Upon looking closer, Amanda starts to think that her mother was murdered and now that she knows to look, weird things start happening to her. She almost gets pushed into traffic, she gets poisoned, there's a homeless man following her. She starts to think that all of these events stem from her former religious cult, the Children of Greater God (COGG) and the secret she's kept for them.  

 

It seems like a lot to follow based on the summary I just gave, but it's actually pretty easy to follow. The main idea of the book is that no one believes Amanda, because she's had issues in the past and her mother was clinically insane, so people just automatically come to the conclusion that she makes shit up because she's crazy too. I would have liked this idea more if it wasn't so closely related to The Girl on the Train (alcoholic witnesses a murder and no one believes her story/involvement). I also found that I didn't really like the main character. I didn't feel attached to her in any way because there was very little development and she was very one-dimensional. Also, there is a slight love triangle in the book that was understandable but still a cliché.

I didn't figure out the conclusion though, which shows that the mystery portion of the book was well thought-out. I would have liked it a lot better if there was more character development, emotion, or even a little more suspense. This may just have been the way the book was written, but I was bored with the story. Good plot, poor execution.