Title: Darkness Becomes Her
Author: Kelly Keaton
Release Date: February 22nd, 2011
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Ari can’t help feeling lost and alone. With teal eyes and freakish silver hair that can’t be changed or destroyed, Ari has always stood out. And after growing up in foster care, she longs for some understanding of where she came from and who she is.
Her search for answers uncovers just one message from her long dead mother: Run. Ari can sense that someone, or something, is getting closer than they should. But it’s impossible to protect herself when she doesn’t know what she’s running from or why she is being pursued.
She knows only one thing: she must return to her birthplace of New 2, the lush rebuilt city of New Orleans. Upon arriving, she discovers that New 2 is very…different. Here, Ari is seemingly normal. But every creature she encounters, no matter how deadly or horrifying, is afraid of her.
Ari won’t stop until she knows why. But some truths are too haunting, too terrifying, to ever be revealed.
Summary from Goodreads.com
My Review: I have had this book sitting in my to be read pile for a while now, but for some reason I kept putting it off. I go through book mood swings and lately I have been on an adult paranormal kick, but I needed a break from that so I decided to give this book a try. I wanted something that was a little dark with some great mythology and that is exactly how this book was described to me. So I took it off the shelf and began to read.
Darkness Becomes Her was everything I wanted from a book and more. Sometimes in young adult world I see the authors talking down to their audience since they think it should be geared towards a younger audience. Darkness Becomes Her is not that book. Though the protagonist, Ari, is a seventeen year old girl, she could have easily been in her late 20′s and the book still would have worked for me. Well, everything except how she is still acts like an awkward teenage girl around guys. 
One of her qualities that did catch me a little off guard was her ability to curse like a sailor. I don’t think I have ever seen that many swear words in a young adult book before. That is not to be taken as a negative though, it did not bother me at all. I am just surprised that it all got to stay in the book, that’s all. I think it was necessary and fit well with the tone of the story and was not in there just for shock value.
As for the content, I felt the story moved along at a quick pace, but it was nice not to have a lull in the plot. I often get bored at those points, but Darkness Becomes Her did not give me time to get bored. I was always engaged in the story and eager to learn more about this world. The mythology was fascinating to me and New Orleans was a perfect backdrop to set the scene for Ari’s adventure. In this world, New Orleans has been completely destroyed and is now known as New 2. A city lost in ruin, and rumored to be overrun with paranormal activity make it the ideal location for Ari to find out more about her mysterious past.
I don’t want to say to much about the mythology because it will spoil the mystery, but Kelly did a excellent job of building this world with a balance of both new and old paranormal creatures. There is a slightly dark, Gothic edge to everything in this novel that made my love of it complete. I devoured the book in one sitting and cannot wait for the next book so I can be lost in New 2 again. If you have not read this book yet, you need to pick it up out of your to be read pile just like I did!
FTC: I received this ARC from the publisher.
I enjoyed this one as well. The dark gothic tone is part of what really worked well for it.