Isa swore she would never return home to Slater, but once her abusive dad dies she heads home to collect her inheritance. At the cemetery, she is greeted by Mason, the one friend she left behind. Mason claims the rest of their friend group was murdered by something supernatural and Isa agrees to help him find out what happened to them.

This is out my typical genre, but overall I still enjoyed it. It was a lot darker than I expected. The writing was very pretty, but a bit more descriptive than I prefer. I usually like when things are written straight to the point, so all the flowery descriptions of everything was a lot to get through. While I liked Isa and Mason, Mason was a true favorite. He was always up front and was very smart and likable. Isa was strong and smart as well, but the way she spoke felt so unrealistic that it was tough to believe her as a character.

Thank you NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I'm not sure why people are calling this lyrical? It's certainly atmospheric. The mystery of what happened to the young people in Slater kept me interested and the reveal in the end was satisfying. Overall, a solid debut with a great, sharp voice.

The prose is well-written, but I never managed to find a toehold in this book. The characters and setting could be more developed. My knowledge (read: teenage obsession) of Spring Awakening may have worked to my detriment, because it often felt like a story grafted on top of Spring Awakening. But if you are looking for gothic young adult horror with evocative writing, give it a try.

This book surprised me in the best way possible. I did not believe that a YA novel will make me feel so strongly. But this book did it. The story within is powerful and will definitely move a person. It was a beautiful albeit dark ride that I would like take again someday. This is a great book which is really worth rereading and discovering new facets to it after each re-read.

The Dark We Know by Wen-yi Lee is a hauntingly lyrical YA horror novel that will leave you on the edge of your seat. The tension between the characters is intense and gripping, creating a heart-stopping experience. Lee’s masterful writing ensures a consistent flow throughout the story, with an atmospheric style that vividly brings each moment to life. This is a must-read for anyone who loves thrilling and emotionally charged horror.

It was very fortunate that the moment I swore off pre-ordering books from Gillian Flynn’s imprint, I was granted an ARC of its next upcoming book, The Dark We Know! This YA story follows Isadora as she returns to her hometown to receive an inheritance from her father’s death, only to find out once she gets there that an old friend, Mason, needs her help taking down the evil spirit that is suspected of causing the deaths of children in town, including two of Isa’s and Mason’s best friends.

My favorite part of this novel was the atmosphere. I kept picturing an abandoned town in Appalachia with views of the surrounding forest and ancient houses. This pairs well with the horror elements, which were also extremely well done. It had rat attacks, bloated bodies, decrepit libraries and more! There is also great gender and sexual orientation diversity in this book, which we love to see in a YA book. I would describe the writing style as lyrical, especially the portions of the book from the Angel’s POV. Because of the writing style, I would consider this a slower paced book so keep that in mind if you decide to pick it up.

On the downside, I felt that the flow and pacing of the novel were off. I was so interested in the main storyline that the growing number of side plots and adventures started to tire me out, not to mention that everything that happens in this book feels like a major surprise. I wanted to feel like I knew where the story was headed but the twists and turns didn’t allow for that.

*Thank you to NetGalley for exchanging an e-ARC of this book for an unbiased review!

here is a lot of suicide in this book. While that suicide might be driven by an outside supernatural force, it's still a heavy read. I think there could have been more aftercare or healing for the surviving family members. I felt like for such a heavy topic there could have been a resources page either in the front or back of the book. Heavy topic aside, there were two other big issues I had with the book. The first was the timeline and the second was the vague location.

At the beginning of the book, it's mentioned that Isa runs away at 16 with a full-ride scholarship to art school. It's made to seem like this book takes place in the United States and if that's the case then she would still be a minor. She wouldn't have been able to attend university at 16 without parental consent. Throughout the book, it mentions she's 18 but is close to graduating. She's only been gone 2 years! How could she graduate? Also, the history of the town continuously references a plague in the past of the town. Which makes it seem like that event happened in like the 1800s, but it ends up being much more recent. It just bothered me, why not add dates to flesh the story out?

The second issue was a matter of place. Slater is the town and Isa goes to university in "the city", but they never say WHERE that it. Like no state or country. It pulled me right out of the story. I could tell it was a mining town by a body of water and mountains. So maybe Virginia? Maybe Pennsylvania? Maybe Wales? It was just frustrating. There was so much care and detail given to the lore and horror, but the actual details of the place/timeline were sloppy. I get that this is meant for young adults, but still. It wouldn't have been hard to flesh out.

The actual psychological horror aspect is good and the trauma of losing people you love in complicated ways was well done. But I just couldn't get past the glaring issues above. It's a no for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Zando Gillian Flynn Books for the ARC, all opinions are my own.

I had such great fun with this book and I truly loved the writing style. I was engaged from the very first page to the last.

I feel like the ending was rushed in my opinion and I would’ve liked if it was panned out differently but overall, that’s how I felt personally and that could differ for others!

I would love to pick up more works by this author!

Thank you to NetGalley and Gillian Flynn Books for providing me with this ARC. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you NetGalley and Zando for the ARC.

I was very intrigued to give this book a go, given that it's written by a fellow Singaporean. While the premise is indeed highly intriguing and Lee's prose is able to do the necessary job for a horror/thriller atmosphere, by the 45% mark, I felt my interest wane. I was unfortunately bored as I pushed myself to finish the latter half of the novel. The redeeming factor is that I do think that Lee's main character Isa is a well-fleshed out protagonist, and I liked her voice.

Thank you to Net Galley and Gillian Flynn Books for the ARC. Unfortunately this book was not for me. I found it difficult to care about the characters and the plot bored me.

I absolutely loved The Dark We Know! I'm a huge Spring Awakening fan, and loved seeing all the influences and nods in this :)

Not sure how I'm so out of sync with the vast majority of reviews here but I did not vibe with this book at all, I almost DNFed it and probably would have had it been any longer. It reminded me of Summer Sons (which I was also a rating outlier on, to be fair) - I think it can just be tough for me to engage with a narrative where a best friend/love interest is already dead, and this book had TWO of those.

The writing certainly had its moments; the monster here was truly unique and the revelation of why it's called the Angel was the highlight of the book in its startling grossness. But I think the strident lyricism of it all ended up being to its detriment more often than not as the actual thread of the narrative sometimes got lost, like one of those AI home interiors where it looks pretty at first but then when you zoom in it turns out a lot of things are just eldritch blobs. And I'm honestly still not sure why everyone was so willing to stay in a town with a long history of dead children. Given the not very satisfactorily resolved plotline about the main character's terrible father and submissive mother, is this supposed to be a story about how people enable monsters?

This one wasn't for me, but maybe I'm just missing something!

My thanks to Zando | Gillian Flynn Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

Wen-yi Lee’s debut novel, The Shadows of Slater, is a very gripping addition to the YA horror genre that will captivate fans of Stephen King’s IT, and even The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson This lyrical tale follows art student Isadora Chang as she rather reluctantly returns to her eerie hometown of Slater, a place marred by her unsettling past and the unexplained deaths of her childhood friends. This book is a narrative that explores themes of trauma, identity, and the lingering grip of the past.

This one was pretty solid, and very fun to read.
There was not a single moment where I felt bored or distracted, and I actually forced myself not to read the final twenty percent, so that I can buy the finished product and read the last part while actually holding the book.

4.5 rounded up!

Thank you to the author for sending over a physical ARC!

Read this if you enjoy:
- Psychological Thrillers/Horror
- Supernatural (vengeful spirits)
- Chilling, horrific descriptions
- Queer representation
- Singaporean Literature (singlit)

*Please check the TWs for this book before you get started!*

I thought this was a beautifully written novel. Admittedly, I am not the most well-versed in this genre. No, I really am not because this is perhaps one of my first few thriller/horror reads. Yet, this book showed me why there are so many fans of these genres. <i>The Dark We Know</i> is a gripping tale about navigating grief, loss, and other past traumas set in a small mining town infused with mystical elements. This is a tale of generational trauma and abuse, topics that I felt were intimately portrayed and explored by the characters. It is a tale that closely deals with the macabre and the intricate examination of the religious and the supernatural.

Isadora Chang makes for an interesting female MC. From the start, Wenyi's mastery of her craft allowed me to experience and sympathise with Isa's dread and reluctance to return to her childhood town. I felt all the emotions Isa felt, especially her desperation to escape, to run away from Slater, a town that very literally haunts her. Her dread and reluctance is in part guilt and grief over the death of her best friends as well as her decision to leave (read: escape) the town as what I suppose was her form of coping mechanism.

And as we know, running away from our problems is never the solution and this is precisely what the novel explores-the importance of facing and overcoming one's fears. Fundamentally, it always seems easier to give up and succumb to our desires but is this really the answer? TDWK thus convincing declares that <i>"I think we can choose not to become what hurt us because what that's how you know the world is chooseable and if it is chooseable then it is makeable and if its makeable then we can make something better of it"</i>.

I thought the resolution/conclusion was something rather profound and beautiful. I especially appreciated the contrast between the dread and reluctance, the deep desire to escape that was so strongly felt at the start of the novel, to the sense of hope and the innate belief that the world can be beautiful. I found this quite comforting.

Lastly, as alluded, the writing here is phenomenal. It is truly intimate and vivid, a perfect example of what it means to "show, don't tell". I love the portrayal of the characters, especially the dynamics between Isa and Mason as they navigate awkwardness of a rekindling friendship marred by loss and misunderstandings. I loved the unique layout(?) structure (?) where the black pages that viscerally detailed the inner struggles and deepest fears of the characters as they were hunted/haunted by the Angel sent chills down my spine.

With all mysteries, I think it is normal to be in a state of utter confusion as you wonder "wait what is going on" until everything clicks and you're like "oh, I know what's happening now". Fortunately or unfortunately, this moment of realisation only occured when I was about 80% into the read. The mystery and the suspense kept me going but it also left me somewhat frustrated as I tried to figure out what on earth was happening.

Nonetheless, this is hands down a fantastic debut. And yes, <i>we all deserve to dream of beautiful things again</i>.

Absolutely phenomenal. scooped me out and left me empty (but also whole and also crying a little). Come for the knife-sharp prose and eerie mystery that turns into full-on dream-horror, stay for the unexpected and wonderfully nuanced portrayal of leaving a church community, of the ways guilt and shame can kill, of the grief that comes with leaving childhood behind; of finding reasons to stay despite it all.

If you enjoyed the jagged edges of Sawkill Girls and Hell Followed With Us, the healing arc of Tess of the Road, and/or the lush atmosphere & strangeness & rage of the Raven Cycle/the Dreamer Trilogy, don't sleep on this one!

Many thanks to the author for an ARC (but also smashing that preorder button so I can read it again and be destroyed again).

How do I compliment accurately without keyboard-smashing my utter derangement post reading this book?

Basically, I'm obsessed. I don't know how else to explain how I feel, honestly. The prose is beautiful and left me very raw and hungry and hurt? I felt transported to Isa's head the whole way through (by the way, the use of second person is absolutely phenomenal here; it felt like the best kind of AO3 submerge, and finding skill and beauty I've never seen before), and she is a great protagonist for this kind of haunting melody of a story — she is raw and compassionate but also steely and sort of covered like sandpaper. There's so much in this setting as well, an eerie small town with plenty of horrifying secrets in its underbelly. The relationships Isa has with her family, in particular, was a draw for me. It felt very honest and very traumatic and very uncomfortable, but in a good way, kind of cathartic and so very human!

This is just such a beautiful, unrestrained story. I'm gushing about it to everyone I know, and I can't wait for it to come out into the world!

I definitely see the haunting of hill house and IT influences in the book , which i loved as well . The writing was wonderful and I greatly enjoyed it .
Thank you for the eArc .

It takes a lot of convincing for me to read anything even remotely spooky—I have enough things in real life to be scared about. But every time I do, I find that the book draws me in instantly and leaves me hooked until the end, and The Dark We Know is no exception. Isa and Mason’s mission to discover what’s taking their town’s people is full of twists and at times genuinely terrifying circumstances, and I couldn’t put it down.

Wen-yi Lee's debut, The Dark We Know, beckons readers into the eerie depths of Slater, a town brimming with secrets and supernatural mysteries. Isa Chang's reluctant return home unveils a chilling series of events that blend spine-tingling suspense with profound introspection.

Lee crafts a narrative that seamlessly intertwines supernatural elements with heartfelt exploration of identity and resilience. Isa's journey to confront both the town's dark past and her own ghosts unfolds through Lee's evocative prose, painting a vivid portrait of a community haunted by its history.

The Dark We Know stands out not only for its haunting atmosphere but also for its depth of emotion and unpredictable twists. Lee's storytelling grips from the outset, delivering a tale that keeps readers enthralled until its gripping conclusion. This novel is a testament to Lee's skill at blending the supernatural with raw human experiences, offering a gripping and thought-provoking read that lingers in the mind.