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After hiding in a mouldering, stinking basement for 46 days with her 11 year old sister, best friend and boyfriend, 17 year old Liylah Flouwers knows she has to try to do something different. She’s almost been caught by the all powerful, tyrannical organisation I-Six after her latest jaunt to the hospital to gather medication and supplies for her sister and friends, and now she knows it won’t be long before the agents finally catch up to her. All because her parents were part of the resistance before they were murdered. When she admits to her friend, Theen, that she didn’t enquire about other resistance groups, she feels shunned by her friends, and decides she has no choice but to turn towards a rumour she overheard. The Dark Arts are the answer to all of her problems – and more important, the only way to not make her feel so powerless. Except, when she ventures to a dingy old nightclub to meet with a practitioner of the Dark Arts, I-Six raid it; and Liylah’s world instantly turns inside out.
Told from the first person singular, in an almost present tense, Dark Innocence takes the reader through a dystopian world filled with the horrors of war. Liylah is simply striving to keep her kid sister alive – at almost any cost. But her patience has worn thin with the constant demands, name calling and whining from 11 year old Rorah. She’s tired, heartsore and believes she’s beginning to see things. What Dark Innocence does particularly well is describe the heart-wrenching despair of grief and guilt and how it can almost drive one person to the brink of insanity.
Although, Dark Innocence takes its sweet time to get to the main part of the plot. It gets almost repetitive with Liylah striving time and time again to steal supplies from the hospital and arguing with Rorah and Theen about the things she can’t seem to get right – despite her very best efforts. It gets to the point of self wallowing as she laments her short-comings time and time again.
Saying that, when the plot really does pick up when Liylah finds herself in the strange world of Sojar. As she tries desperately to find her way home and tries to figure out the significance of the strange floopy toy poodle stuffed into her pocket, she begins to discover some truths about herself. It almost seems as though Alexander has fallen into the rhythm of writing here, as the book moves so much quicker at this point, and becomes much less wallowing.
S. A.
First published on Reedsy Discovery as part of their ARC program. You can read the original review here.
You can purchase Dark Innocence on Amazon by clicking on its name. It’s also available to read for free on Kindle Unlimited.