Delaney Meyers-Petrov (and you know her full name because various characters repeat it over and over throughout the course of the book) is a Deaf 18 year old girl enrolled in the mysterious Godbole University, where students and professors are trying to learn how to move through parallel universes. Colton Price, an upperclassman and TA, drowned when he was 9, and came to a week later at Delaney’s feet. But as a young adult at Godbole he’s been warned to stay away from her, or else. So of course instead of staying away from her he acts like a total asshole, then offers to help her study. Instead of brushing him off (because again, total asshole!), Delaney accepts, and they start hanging out. And so they like each other but they don’t, they’re friends but they aren’t, etc. etc., etc. Then one of Delaney’s friends turns up dead, halfway across the country. And it turns out he’s not the first Godbole student to suffer a sudden, violent end. Delaney and Colton have to figure out what’s happening, and how to stop it, before one of them becomes the next victim.
The concept is cool. The problem is the execution. Enemies to lovers is a fun trope, but you have to make the transition believable. Betrayal is a great twist, but you have to build up a relationship to make the heel turn sting. Friends determined to help is lovely, but it would be lovelier to know more than a bare minimum about these characters who are supposed to be so close to our protagonist. And I love a lush sentence (one of my favorite authors is Catherynne M. Valente, so you know I mean it) but words have to serve a purpose. There are only so many times I can read about someone’s cypress-emerald-aspen-viridian eyes before I want to scream that they’re GREEN, OK? And there were many many times where it felt like the author reached for a thesaurus and picked the word they liked the look of best, without making sure that it was actually a synonym for the word they were replacing.
The Whispering Dark was a struggle to get through. Maybe you’ll like it better than I did. But if you don’t, don’t say I didn’t warn you.