Find You In The Dark Series Book Review- Heavy Topics
Updated: Nov 25, 2020
This is a more drama and plot based story and character based novel for young adults. This series talks about vulnerable and tough topics like bi-polar disorder, self-harm, parental negligence, and more so TRIGGER WARNING.
"I'm afraid that the ugly will scare you away," (pg 220).
Wow this series just hit straight in the feels. A. Meredith Walters taps straight on the head of mental illnesses and how it is to go through life with it, as well as including characters who don't know what mental illness feels like. Hope you find this Find You In The Dark book review helpful.
Summary of Find You In The Dark
It's about a girl named Maggie Young who is this pretty confident girl, who has her life organized. She isn't afraid to speak her mind and likes to have control over everything. She realizes her everyday routines are starting to bore her and life feels a little meaningless, like she is losing sense of adventure and passion. Here comes Clayton Reed, a quiet, bad boy who immediately sparks this interest within Maggie and she just has to know him.
Clayton acts very off and on towards her and everyone else in school. Maggie is a persistent character and doesn't give up until he breaks down to her and she finds herself into this new world of mental illness. Clayton has bi-polar disorder, panic/mania, and also self-harms and went through drug addiction. The first book is entirely Maggie's perspective and we get to see her inner thoughts and workings when she is encountered with someone suffering deeply from a mental illness-- something she hasn't ever dealt with. She gets a deeper look into his life with his negligent parents when she can't even fathom the thought, since her parents have always been nurturing, caring people.
Find You In The Dark is spilling with trauma, hurt, and vigorous problems that it makes for a great dramatic and romantic story to read. The first book ends so sadly and I read the whole book within two days because the writing just flows naturally. It isn't something you need a dictionary for or a history lesson to understand. It's different than what I have been reading in terms of it being entirely just a fictional story without magic, or allegoric or satiric intentions, just purely a story with a good plot line.
It's so hard to put into physical words on a page how it feels to think you're losing your mind, losing control of your body, of your life, but A. Meredith Walters does it with stunning ease. It pains me to see Clayton hurting or spiraling out of control and there is nothing you as a reader can do other than just relate like "shit, I've been there. I've smacked rock bottom at 100 miles per hour so I feel this pain."
Second book
I can say I liked the second book way better than the first one, Light In The Shadows. I was very intrigued by the ending of the first one to keep reading and I'm glad I did because with the second and last novel, we really got more developed characters and it's awesome to see more growth. PLUS, we get Clayton's perspective which is awesome because his is just raw and sad when you try to comprehend what goes on in his mind, like why him slicing his body gives him pleasure in the pain.
The titles of both of these books play well with the story because we all have been lost in the darkness and it can be so hard to find your way out. It's not just a romantic story with two teens falling in love and their biggest problems is high school drama. No, this is what young adults go through in their developing years, especially the difficulty whenever one has a mental illness or outside factors like parental negligence.
Just a side note but I LOVE LOVE LOVE Maggie's friends in the novels. She has two best friends, Rachel and Daniel and they have such relatable personalities that when I read it I was like, "oh yeah, I totally have a friend like this." Daniel is the protective, older brother Maggie never had and Rachel is the most attentive and thoughtful character in the whole novel in my opinion. It would be cool to see her perspective on things more than just what Maggie tells us through Rachel's facial expressions and dialogue.
I recommend this series because it is such an easy read and the plot keeps building and building and the NEED to know what will happen next will keep you up until five in the morning to finish it (yup I did that). Anyways, great read, cute little love story, and LOVE the emphasis with mental illness and the journey to recovery.
Love, AKO
Thanks for reading everyone! I appreciate each and everyone of you for taking the time out of your busy lives to read what I have to say. I pray my words can spark a thought, a lost hope, or a will to reach for the stars inside of you.
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