This was a great read! I have a book club recommendation coming up and I will definitely pick this one as our read! Kept me on my toes and loved the ending.

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker is a brilliant literary epic drama spanning decades and genres. This exceptional, very highly recommended novel is certainly one of the best novels of 2024. If you loved Whitaker's We Begin at the End (2020) then please read All the Colors of the Dark.

It is 1975 in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, where Saint Brown and her best friend Joseph “Patch” Macauley are best friends. Saint, whose parents are both deceased, lives with her grandmother and keeps bees. Patch was born with one eye, thus the nickname and his love of all things pirate related. He lives with his neglectful single mother. When Patch sees a man attacking Misty, a popular girl from school, he steps in to stop it. Misty escapes but Patch is captured instead and held captive in a dark basement for many months.

Saint is determined to find her best friend and never loses hope, always seeking clues about his whereabouts. Her dogged persistence and tenacity is never-ending. While captive in the total darkness of the basement, Patch meets a girl, Grace, who tells him stories from places across the country and keeps him safe. Grace gives Patch hope and a reason to survive.

And this is just a very brief taste of what awaits you when reading All the Colors of the Dark.

What follows is a glorious, heartbreaking literary saga that covers 1975 to 2001. It is an in-depth character study that merges together, in part, as a domestic drama, a coming-of-age tale, a missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a story of obsession, and a love story, a prison drama, and more. The short chapters are from the point-of-view of Saint or Patch. Once I started reading All the Colors of the Dark I was totally immersed in the believable and heartrending world Whitaker paints. It is a long novel, but was impossible to put down.

The writing is eloquent, descriptive, poignant, and the final result is simply a masterpiece. Whitaker is such a gifted writer! All of his characters come to life as fully realized individuals with strengths and flaws. I felt like I intimately knew all of the characters and their story will continue to resonate with me for years. Bravo, Chris Whitaker - All the Colors of the Dark is a masterpiece of literature. Thanks to Crown Publishing for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, X, BookBrowse, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

Thank you to NetGalley, Crown, and Chris Whitaker for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of All the Colors of the Dark.
This epic novel takes place over 25 years and follow the lives of a community plagued with tragic events. The characters are well developed and likable. We learn the good, the bad and the ugly of each one and root for a successful ending to occur. The story covers a multitude of genres which gives the reader a good variety of writing style and depth to the plotline. The writing is beautiful, descriptive and the author does an awesome job of setting the scene and preparing you for what is next. The mystery is a slow burn with twists and turns guaranteed to keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat I encourage readers to take this slowly and think about all that is happening. Savor the emotions and digest all of the decisions that are made. There are many meaningful friendships developed after all these years and their importance drives the decisions made whether right or wrong. There is a reason everything happens and I wonder how much control a person has to make the correct choices. I thoroughly recommend reading this novel.

At 13 years old, Patch Macauley, the one-eyed pirate, has already learned that life can knock you down. He lost his father to war, his mother is barely holding it together, he’s bullied by his classmates, and he doesn’t always know where his next meal is coming from. When Patch meets Saint, the new girl in town, an unlikely friendship is born. A friendship that spans decades and survives against all odds.

This novel doesn’t want to be put in a box.  It’s a coming-of-age story that falls under the thriller genre. But it’s so much more. This is a slow-paced, character-driven novel that follows the ripple effect of a tragedy in a small town. How a friendship formed as kids can change the trajectory of one’s career path. How a single event can shape the rest of your life. How hero’s come in all shapes and sizes.

I found myself deeply attached to both main characters. They shared a lot of the same qualities. They trusted each other even when it felt impossible, they were both tenacious. They both showed hope even in the most devastating of circumstances. Neither of these characters were perfect, but I think that just made them so much stronger and easier to love.

I will admit to being intimidated by the length of this book, and I don’t usually love character-driven books, but Whitaker puts so much depth and emotion into these characters along with moments of levity that it kept me invested and needing to know what will happen. I have never annotated a book either but found myself highlighting so many quotes. The author also accomplished a rare feat for a thriller because this book made me cry. I went through every spectrum of emotion during this reading experience. 

There were a few places that I wish the author had expanded upon, but I understand why he kept the focus on the crux of the story and only vaguely outlined other key aspects of their lives. 

This is my second 5-star read by this author, and he is now on my auto buy list. This book just went to my top read of 2024.

If you liked Demon Copperhead or The Lincoln Highway, I think you may also enjoy this book.

I found this story thoroughly engrossing. It follows the journey of a rebellious teenager transitioning into adulthood, exploring themes of friendship, heartbreak, loss, and tragedy. The narrative is rich with a diverse range of experiences, keeping me eagerly anticipating each new twist and turn.

The young protagonist, a courageous pirate, saves the girl he has silently admired from a distance. However, tragedy strikes, leading to his capture which leads to his mother falling into a deep depression and giving up. Despite most people forgetting about him, his loyal best friend remains steadfast in the search for him. Through the unfolding events, we gain insights into the lives of each character, witnessing their personal triumphs and tragedies.

I particularly appreciated the character development throughout the story, observing how they evolve into mature adults. Among them, Charlotte stood out to me as a compelling character. The conclusion, albeit not a universally happy one, felt fitting and provided a sense of closure that was well-earned. I wholeheartedly recommend this tale for its engaging narrative and well-rounded characters.

I was so excited when I got approved for this book. I read so many good reviews about his previous book, We Begin at the End and was curious about this one.

This book is one of those books that you start reading and you can simply not put down. Non-stop reading, and I love every part of it. It pretty much has everything and more. I find his writing style very unique, and engaging. Did not disappoint me.

Thank you Crown and Netgalley, for the free advanced copy, in exchange for an honest review.

All The Colors of The Dark

This was such a FANTASTIC Book! An easy 5 Stars and my favorite book of the month and probably the year. It’s just that good.

It is a complex but captivating & epic story that spans many decades following Saint & Patch. It is told from a dual narrative. We meet Thirteen year old Patch, the pirate who saves a wealthy classmate from a serial killer and goes missing instead, and his best friend Saint, the beekeeper, who can’t believe Patch would have died and tries everything to find him.

Just when I thought the book was close to being over, another twist in the story would occur. I loved that it was not a predictable storyline at all. It was an epic saga, coming of age, mystery and sprinkled in love and friendships. I don’t think I can say how much I loved these characters & their story enough.

Thanks to the author & publisher for my arc, I’m definitely buying a hard copy for my favorites shelf.

MANY thanks to NetGalley for the eARC for this truly beautiful and tragic story.
How does it feel to be Chris Whitaker, to carry so much beauty and loss and be able to capture and convey it all?
This is a love story (many love stories). This is a thriller. This is a multi-whodunit. This is the telling of lives, true crevices that cannot be filled, lights to look for, reach and hold close.
It’s a story of Patch and Saint, two 13 year old kids, alone but for each other, and the summer lay before them in 1975. Girls are disappearing. And then the unthinkable happens to these two, their bonds tested over and over through their lifetimes.
It’s the story of Misty, the beautiful popular girl tied to Patch when he literally saves her. And Grace, the voice in the dark to Patch, who he can never not hear, who he can never not see, but never stops looking for her.
So many other people who mean so much to these four people, not truly satellites as they are so entertained with their pasts and their now. Full and flawed, their foundations.
Their stories are so engrossing, I found myself holding my breath so often, but failed to hurry through the story. The prose is gorgeous, holds you in its moment, each sentence weighted, but airy. How Whitaker can suffuse his stories with so much color, sometimes never even mentioning color, but the shadings evoke such strong visceral emotions and visuals.
And, yes, the overused “unputdownable” applies here, in ways you won’t know until you open the pages and begin…..I could reread this again and again…..just to feel so much.
TEN STARS. TEN STARS. I cannot say this enough.

A book unlike any other. The writing of this book was entirely unique and refreshing. It’s a coming of age, mystery, romance, and overall life story of Patch and Saint from Missouri. The story goes to show that everything comes full circle.

Fans of Quarry Girls will enjoy this one.

I opened this book believing that I was in for suspense or a thriller, an epic story much like how I felt when I read We Begin At The End; but what I didn’t expect a novel about missing girls and find it a kind of love story.

No, not a love story in the way you probably assume I mean, but one with heart. Where found family begins in childhood with loss. That one moment in time where a single eyed boy saves the girl he could never have… and the decades of life that came after

Sure it’s about two childhood friends who love each other in a myriad of ways. It’s also about a boy who saves a girl from being kidnapped. It’s also about survivors guilt and crimes against women. It’s taught with pain and loss, but also hope and love.

See I went into it thinking it was “just a thriller”. But it’s so much more. It’s crass AF. It’s got a young girl with a mouth of her that could make you cringe as you hug her tight. And it’s got a little bit of vigilante.

With all of that blend of genres, you have a literary fiction book that will haunt you in the same ways those young girls haunted Patch and Saint. It’s the journey you’re on for this one that has you transfixed on what you think is coming next… narrowly missing what was there all along.

Oopf. Cue the book hangover

4.5 stars
Sometimes you read a book and feel so much that you just don’t have the words to express the experience. This is that book. It is a sweeping saga encompassing decades and touching on such themes as love, loss, small town life, grief, obsession, family, poverty and so much more. My words aren’t going to do this book justice, so I’m just going to implore you to read it because it is so worth the read.

Highly recommend.

It is 1975, a small town in Missouri, and the reader is introduced to “Patch”, a one-eyed boy, from a troubled, broken home. He is a loner with a pirate fixation. He finally makes friends with a girl named Saint and they forge an unbreakable bond. During this period, girls have started disappearing and on one fateful day Patch ends up saving a classmate from abduction. This sets the story rolling, as Patch ditches the pirate act and becomes obsessed with finding these missing girls and stopping a serial killer. He has no problem breaking the law, as he does so. This goes on for decades. Filled with terror, suspense, romance and unflagging friendship, this sprawling tale has more plot twists and added layers to populate several other novels. Somehow, the author keeps the reader turning the pages. Sure, I would have liked some trimming here and there but in the end, I was pleased with the journey and the unexpected but satisfying ending. Recommended.

All the Colors of the Dark is a story about Saint and Patch, two outcast kids who befriend one another. It begins in 1975 and sweeps decades, weaving an epic tale of love, loyalty, murder and tragedy. When I tell you this story shattered me, know that there is no exaggeration. I was urging the story in different directions in my mind, trying to will Whitaker to do what I wanted him to do with each of the characters but he knew what he was doing when he was tearing my heart out through this entire story! There is hope in the pages and I ended the novel wiping satisfied tears. Chris Whitaker's previous novel, "We Begin at the End" was good. The young female protagonist in that one was good. This novel is miles better. These characters are leagues deeper. Do not let the size of this book deter you. Read it slowly. Take time with the story. Live Saint and Patch's lives with them. Amazing work! #AlltheColorsoftheDark #NetGalley #ChrisWhitaker

Chris Whitaker delivers yet another amazing, genre-bending literary masterpiece!

Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for a digital copy of this book.

We Begin at the End was one of my very favorite books of 2021. It was one of the two best crime fiction novels I had ever read, alongside Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby. A third is now joining their ranks. All the Colors of the Dark is an absolutely brilliant example of crime fiction. It’s heavy and hard and heartbreaking, but it ends on such a strong, vibrant note of hope that it makes the darkness of the journey feel worth it.

“I just wanted to show you that sometimes things survive despite the harshest of odds.”

I can’t say anything about the plot of this book without giving something away. So instead, I’ll talk about the elements of this book that made it such a profound reading experience for me. Let’s start with the foundation: the craftsmanship. Whitaker’s style and voice are incredibly unique. He has such an odd way with words; it compels you to read slowly so that you can fully grasp what’s being stated, while also being incredibly propulsive, even in the quietest of moments. The plotting and pacing were also very unique. I could never guess where the story was going next. The trajectory was wholly unpredictable, which made it feel true to life. Most stories have some kind of recognizable framework to them, but I never felt that presence in this book. Instead, it felt unusually organic for a novel.

“Memories lie in people, not places and things.”

Then there are the characters. My heart ached for Saint, and Patch, and characters on the periphery. This was almost too heartbreaking to read in places. I found myself putting it down often, because while I needed to know what happened next, I didn’t want to see the characters suffer any more. Nix and Sammy, Tooms and Grace, Misty and Jimmy, Norma and Charlotte, were all well fleshed out and very interesting. They felt real, but nowhere near as real as Saint and Patch. I fell in love with these two friends, and my heart broke over everything they went through.

“To love and be loved is more than can ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes.”

The setting was also well drawn, if secondary to the characters, and the passage of time felt believable. This book spans decades, from 1975 to 2001. A story covering that much time runs the risk of feeling either rushed or plodding, either of which throws off the believability of the tale being spun. Not at all the case here. Each jump forward in time also made sense, and didn’t leave me feeling like I had missed any steps. He also did a great job weaving in subtle religious and societal commentary without coming across as preachy, or detracting at all from the story.

“God is a first call and a last resort, from christening to death bed. In between is where faith is tested. The mundanity. Anyone can drop to their knees when they’re facing crisis, but doing it when everything is steady…”

“God started the fire. And now He wants the credit for putting it out.”

Art played a large part in this book, as did obsession. We saw how art can be a refuge, or it can fuel the flames of whatever obsession is running your life. This presentation of art, specifically painting and photography, lent even more meaning to the title. I don’t often comment on titles in my book reviews, but I found this one evocative, and layered with meaning. It really added something to the book, in my opinion. Not all titles do.

“Can’t you see how beautiful you make tragedy?”

Whitaker shows us how trauma can force maturity, or it can break you. Sometimes, it does both. His characters long desperately for a return to life and relationships that are nothing but ash, with no hope of reclamation. Survival doesn’t always mean a return to normalcy. In fact, that return is rarely the case. He also shows us how love can leave you broken in a multitude of ways, how it can twist devotion into obsession, even when the heart behind it is pure. Some such obsessions are even noble, though that makes them no less destructive.

“Okay is the preserve of the uninspired… I’d rather live and die at the extremes than exist in the middle.”

Something I really love about crime fiction versus procedurals is the focus on fallout. Procedurals are all about solving a case, about bringing the guilty party to justice. While that is the hopeful endgame of crime fiction, that is not the focus. We are instead plunged into the aftermath, as we are shown how a singular crime effects an individual, a relationship, a town. Those ripple effects, and how they continue expressing themselves months or years or decades after the fact, are what set crime fiction apart.

“Saint wanted to ask what it was like, to lose the thing that defined you. But perhaps she knew: it left you someone else. A stranger you and no choice but to tolerate, and see each day and feel and fear.”

I was stunned by All the Colors of the Dark. I am completely in awe of the craftsmanship, and I will be thinking about the characters and their journey, and the ending Whitaker gave them, for a long time to come. This is a book that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to bring myself to reread, but it’s absolutely a book that I will be getting a physical copy of someday. Powerful stories will always have a home on my shelves, and this is every bit as powerful as We Begin at the End and Razorblade Tears, if not more so. What a story.

I read an ARC of this novel thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing.

I saw so many raving reviews about this novel and was very hopeful. However this novel fell a bit flat for me. The length of this novel alone was a bit to handle as it was 600 plus pages.

The premise of this book is great and in parts I was very intrigued and interested however there were quite a few parts that I was bored with, and found myself skimming. I enjoyed the ending of the novel but felt like the book could have been shortened.

This will definitely be a book that is raved about as it is good! I just personally wish I had been a bit more engaged in it.

An absolutely stunning tour de force.

When books try to court more than one genre, they often don‘t get any of them right. Not in this case. „All the Colors of the Dark“ is as much a whodunnit / serial killer mystery / police procedural as it is a coming-of-age story, though at its heart, all these elements are comprised into a magnificent work of literary fiction.

In a breathtaking arch spanning decades from 1975 to 2001, the author - following his 2021 triumph „We Begin at the End“ - once again places a feisty and fiercely loyal girl at the center of his story. Thirteen-year-old beekeeper Saint and her best friend, one-eyed „pirate“ Joseph / „Patch“, are the two most central protagonists of the story, and to say much more of the plot - beyond the fact that one act of bravery will change both of their lives irrevocably - would be giving too much away.

This is a book you should read without knowing too much about it, allowing the reader to revel in the beauty of the language despite the often harsh, brutal, and heartbreaking things depicted within; it is an ode to the resilience of the human spirit and the light of hope that propels us forward and out of even the darkest of places.

Stunning, shattering, hopeful, and devastating, „All the Colors of the Dark“ is a magnificent tour de force and an absolute must-read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

„All the Colors of the Dark“ is slated to be released on June 25, 2024.

I loved this book! The characters and the story will stay with me for years to come. This is a long book, but it's well paced throughout so it didn't take long to read. I highly recommend this book, it should be on the top 10 must reads for 2024!

This one gets all the stars⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️……

“You get out of here and you don’t look back. Never. You promise me you make it out and leave all this behind you.”
These are the words Grace spoke to Patch, while they lived trapped in a dark room for over 300 days. Patch spent the rest of his life looking for Grace. He failed her most important ask, and failing ruined his life and the lives of so many others.

Chris Whitaker is a master storyteller. It’s impossible to describe the depth of this story. The characters are soooo well developed that you feel like you have known them your whole life. There are good ones, great ones, bad ones and horrific ones. The ending of the story is what you always look for in a book. Nothing left to the imaginations everything comes together perfectly, leaving you crying.

All The Colors of the Dark will no doubt be my favorite read of 2024 and one of the top five of all time. We Begin at the End is another epic book by Whitaker.

Thank you NetGalley and Crown Publishing for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book will be out June 25. Move it to the top of your to be read list.

Absolutely stunning-if you read one book this year make it this one! I could not put it down and when I had to because you know... life...I could not wait to pick it back up. Patch and Saint may be two of the most memorable characters I have ever had the pleasure to know. Even though the subject matter is dark they brought the light. The entire cast of characters are so rich and so real and so damned lovable. The writing is glorious, the plot so complex and revealed so masterfully-at over 600 pages I was still not ready to let go of the pirate boy and the beekeeper.