When the Stars Go Dark: A Novel

Had the potential to be a really interesting mystery with an exploration of trauma. However, I had some serious issues with how it was carried out. First, the whole thing with using a real-life tragic murder of a teenage girl (Polly Klaas) as a backdrop seemed exploitative, and also the importance of a psychic to the case, when in reality so many so-called psychics prey on the families of victims in need of closure, i hate when mystery books and crime procedurals give credence to this. I also found the protagonist's 'reason' for leaving to Mendocino kind of strangely written - some vague mentions in the first few chapters, and then completely forgotten until the very end.

Anyway, I'm just disappointed because I think this book had a lot of potential. Better story structure and less exploitation of real tragedy could have made an excellent novel, but it's just confusing. So many characters and timelines that aren't well woven together.

3.5 stars. I enjoyed this story - but it was a bit too slow for my tastes. I liked the true-crime feel it had because unfortunately things like this happen all the time & it was cool to know that there are people out there who refuse to give up on the victims.

The last 50 pages...wowza that was a lot to unload on a reader but man was this story good. I struggled with giving this a 3/4 because it felt hard to get into at first and a bit dragged on at times, but the amount of research, symbolism and visuals the author uses really kept me gripped. Definitely a must read for fans of true crime/murder mysteries!

Overall, one of the best modern murder mysteries I've read in a long time. I was drawn into the main characters life and the ending gave me everything I was looking for. Author did a great job at character building

This made me really happy :) I felt like the book was well rounded and kept me on my toes wanting to know what would happen next! The ending was really good and I thought that it had a really good final boss battle.