Book Review - And I Darken

And I Darken by Kiersten White
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had a love/hate relationship with this book from the beginning.

It's a retelling of the possible life of one of my favorite historical figures, Vlad Tepes III, aka Dracula. However, Vlad is gender swapped to female. Lada. I am very much attached to the actual historic figure, who is male, so while I enjoyed a story about a Wallachian noble who is sent as a child to live with their enemy, the Ottomans, and the struggles of their love for country and the friendships they develop in the foreign land, I did not enjoy Vlad portrayed as the character Lada.

Another struggle I had was the course the book took of bringing the reader through Lada and Radu's childhood up until adolescence. It was too long for me. I didn't care about their young childhood years, and I do feel it took too much page space. However, given the potential for the reader to be unsympathetic to Lada's later actions without the context of her childhood I understand WHY it was done. Taking on a character such as Lada is no mean feat, and I am fully in awe of how Kiersten White pulled it off. The balance she kept between the character's nature as violent, dark, and yet still immensely sympathetic deserves its own accolades.

Points I loved were the interpersonal power struggles between Radu, Lada, and Mehmet - their love for each other is always overshadowed by some form of disdain, fear, or outright hatred; the walk through history White takes the readers through - with my limited knowledge of Mehmet it appears White was as accurate as possible with events; and the journey through a land and era I feel has not been given the literary attention it deserves.

But I'm totally biased with that. :P

While I would be cautious about who I recommend this to, it's more of an in depth than casual read I would argue, I will be continuing the series for the potential events and struggles of all the characters.

View all my reviews