Review - All the Things We Do in the Dark by Saundra Mitchell

All the Things We Do in the Dark by Saundra Mitchell

Published 29th October 2019 by Harper Teen 

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge - 43/50

I was gifted a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

There’s no such thing as a secret.

SOMETHING happened to Ava. The curving scar on her face is proof. But Ava would rather keep that something hidden—buried deep in her heart and her soul.

She has her best friend Syd, and she has her tattoos—a colorful quilt, like a security blanket, over her whole body—and now, suddenly, she has Hailey. Beautiful, sweet Hailey, who seems to like Ava as much as she likes her. And Ava isn’t letting anything get in the way of finally, finally seeking peace. But in the woods on the outskirts of town, the traces of someone else’s secrets lie frozen, awaiting Ava’s discovery—and what Ava finds threatens to topple the carefully-constructed wall of normalcy that she’s spent years building. Secrets leave scars. But when the secret in question is not your own—do you ignore the truth and walk away? Or do you uncover it from its shallow grave, and let it reopen old wounds—wounds that have finally begun to heal?

My Thoughts

This book was raw and emotional. It told a really powerful story based of the authors own experiences with rape and sexual assault, so trigger warnings for these things. This book does have it's own trigger warnings in the front too which is great as it doesn't rely on early readers and reviewers to make people aware of these. The main character tells her story and as you follow her we discover ways in which she copes with what has happened to her but also how she struggles with what has happened and how she's feeling. This book definitely promotes the importance of talking to people and asking for help however, it doesn't force this upon you. I think it was extremely well written and handled all of the topics very well. There was a bit of a mystery aspect to this plot as well that ran alongside the main characters day to day life and I think this was an interesting way to depict the characters thoughts and feelings about how she's coping in her everyday life. There's also LGBTQIA+ rep in this book, our main character ends up in a f/f romance and again this didn't feel forced or included on purpose. It complimented the story well. 

Overall I enjoyed this story when I read it and it definitely covered some really important topics extremely well. It was a raw and powerful read, full of emotion and I think it was very well written and handled all of the topics well. The only reason why I didn't give it 5 stars was because I found the story itself, although extremely important, didn't fully immerse me. 

Overall Rating