Welcome to the 497th installment of my lecture series entitled “Just because it has magic and is set at a school does not make it Dark Academia.” Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features vomit, blood, a rat, recreational drug use, references to sex, anxiety, depression, executive dysfunction, a car crash, the death of parents, implied racism, a character being outed, sex shaming, a broken bone, a dead body, extraction of teeth without anaesthetic, suicide, and body horror. Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for the eProof. It was a missed opportunity in my opinion.īut I did enjoy the story overall, and I really look forward to Cottingham's next book, This Delicious Death. I also felt a lot of the more terrifying moments of the story happened off page, to the other characters with the narrators weren't around. It's hard to be scared of something you find ridiculous, that doesn't make sense to you. And because of that, Nsrosi lost her sinister vibes for me. We were given some answers, but left was left with so many other questions answered we were given no reason for certain things. While, creature-wise, My Dearest Darkest got a little Stranger Things, I found Nerosi to be too far-fetched and a little ridiculous. Have the evil be completely inexplicable, or leave us with no questions at all. With horror, I feel you to either explain nothing or explain everything.

I did have some issues with the ending, though. They both really grew, and their romance was really sweet. I really loved how both Finch and Selena's characters developed over the course of the story.

I really enjoyed My Dearest Darkest by Kayla Cottingham! It was so gripping! It's really quite messed up, and I was constantly on edge, wondering what would happen next, and what Nerosi was and ultimately wanted.