Publication Date June 25, 2024
A few years ago, I read Chris Whitaker’s book We Begin At The End, and I liked it a LOT, so I was happy to receive a copy of his new book All The Colors of the Dark, which I received from NetGalley and Crown Publishing in exchange for my honest review.
It is SO good! It starts in 1975 and focuses on two young people whose “outcast” status helps bring them together in the small town in Missouri, where they live. One of them is a young boy named Patch, born with only one eye and known as a pirate. Why? “His mother peddled the romance of a cutlass and eye patch because often for kids like him the flair of fiction dulled a reality too severe.” The other outcast is his best (only?) friend, a girl named Saint, and together they try to come to understand the reason why young girls have been disappearing in their town. Patch is somewhat obsessed with a beautiful girl from a rich family, and after he helps stop a crime and saves her, he disappears from the town, Saint is completely lost without him and spends the next thirty years searching for him.
The book is beautifully written, and although it spends over 600 pages to uncover the stories behind the mysteries that unfold, the story moves quickly. Many of the chapters end with a sort of cliff hanger and TBH it’s hard to put down. Whitaker has quite a vocabulary, and I had to look up a number of words (vadouvan, boutade, and satiating among them).
I loved this book. Highly recommended. Five stars.