I Am the Dark That Answers When You Call

Starred review from September 15, 2024
In this thrilling sequel to 2023'sI Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me, a former prima ballerina reckons with the ramifications of her decision to forge a deal with a primordial deity--as well as with her grief, guilt, and the god's growing demands. Laure Mesny, the current embodiment of the eldritch Wicked Dark, drinks, parties, and dances to cope with the aftermath of events that killed her best friend and sealed her Mephistophelian pact. She begins to suspect that her alliance with the god Acheron is more parasitic than symbiotic and fears she's losing what little agency and selfhood she has as he nests within her body. Meanwhile, people are dying violently on the streets of Paris, and the immortal land of Elysium, in "a dimension beyond Paris," inexorably begins to rot. As brown-skinned Laure investigates, she's shocked by the secrets she uncovers that threaten both the mortal and immortal worlds. Laure feels grotesque, unloved, and abandoned, saying, "Perhaps I was a monster to be put down, when all I'd ever done was try to survive." But she's a fierce and vulnerable antihero, someone who protects herself as well as outcasts and the vulnerable. Beneath the viscera, the story underscores that the real horror isn't the monsters we become in order to survive a cruel world, but the powers that try to bend and break us to commit atrocities for their benefit. This bold and bloody coming-of-age story is an enthralling page-turner. (author's note)(Horror. 14-18)

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January 10, 2025
Grades 9-12 Now that Acheron is part of her forever, Laure has powers she never dreamed of. But she's struggling to cope with the changes wrought by her decisions, especially the loss of ballet's structure and routine. Laure tries to keep dance in her life without Op�ra Garnier by auditioning for other opportunities, while dealing with Acheron's dark voice in her head and the appearance of her dead best friend Coralie's mouthy ghost. Gender-unconscious promiscuity and copious drinking and partying with Andor and Keturah mostly takes the edge off, but their concern begins to feel suffocating now that Niamh, a questionable acolyte of Laure's creation, has reappeared. Laure's new dance world collides with the gods' underworld as something very wrong with Elysium is exposed, putting Laure and her friends in grave danger. Plenty of Parisian details and gracefully outlined dance scenes meld with graphic violence and intense emotions for a deep exploration of what defines and sustains true friendship and self-acceptance. A rewarding conclusion to an intricate and unsettling duology.

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