I thought this book was going to read like a horror story. No intrigue, no real scary moments so this turned out to be disappointing considering what I thought it was going to be.

Ask the Dark by Henry Turner

9780544308275

256 Pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Book Group
Release Date: April 7, 2015

Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers, Teens & Young Adult

This is the story of Billy Zeets. He is 14 years old and has always been in trouble. It is summertime and he is trying to find work since their home is being foreclosed. His father is disabled, and his mother died two years ago. His sister Leezie is in a relationship with a bad boy. Because Billy goes looking for trouble, he goes looking in the windows of a house that looks vacant. He sees some boxes and thinks he can find something he can sell. He breaks in and looks around. This one act sets things in motion that will change Billy’s life.

The story involves a case of missing boys. Billy wants to find the boys and collect the reward to save his family home. The book is in the first-person point of view. The story is written as if it was spoken so the spelling and pronunciation is sometimes hard to follow. You find out that Billy is in fact talking into a recording device. Billy reminded me of the main character in John Grisham’s book The Client.

Unfortunately I had to DNF this book. One of my pet peeves in books is when the book is written in the grammar of southern rednecks. I get that they’re rednecks and that’s fine and dandy but I personally can’t enjoy reading it.

I think if you were a fan of The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, you may like this because the prose is the same.

I read YA all the time for myself and so that I can recommend them to my Godson, and other teenagers. Ask the dark sounded promising, but wasn't for me. The style of writing was hard to read; I put it down several times, it just kind of plodded along. I am sure some will enjoy it simply because the F-bomb is dropped a lot!

Hard to follow the characters. Potential story line that didn't lead anywhere.

Billy Zeets is a young boy that has not always been good and done the right things. When Billy learns that his father has lost his job and they are about to be put out of their house because his dad can't pay the mortgage anymore, Billy knows that he has to do something to try and help. His older sister of course does nothing to help them out either.

Billy gets little jobs around the neighborhood and earns money here and there but for him to come by jobs would be a lot easier had he not burned some bridges earlier in his younger years. While Billy is working and doing his small jobs he starts to realize that some boys around the neighborhood are coming up missing. Billy takes it upon himself to start to investigate what is going on.

Billy starts watching one of the neighbors that he thinks is sort of creepy and Billy knows that he provides drugs for some of the kids anyway. Will Billy be able to solve these mysteries without getting in more trouble?

This YA read will be a big hit I think. I do think that some of the language I could have done without though. I know some teens are just that way, but I didn't like that too much.

I love the unique perspective in this novel. This is a great telling of suspense and simple mystery for any age. I will definitely recommend this for both YA and adult reading groups.

I loved Billy, he was so realistic. I'm pretty sure I've met him at a few different points in my life. Also, with such a useless family (and being a kind reformed hoodlum) he does the best he can to try and keep his family together. His sister is a total bitch and his Dad basically lives in a depressed fog. The cops won't help him, no one believes him and Billy is lacking in common sense - so things get very dangerous very quickly. I'd highly recommend this book, especially for teenage boys. Great writing, and the resolution wasn't completely unbelievable.

I loved this book. Very suspenseful page turner until the end. Delinquent hero!