Dark Things I Adore
by Katie Lattari
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Pub Date 14 Sep 2021 | Archive Date 14 Sep 2021
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Description
A provocative must-read of feminist fury about the inhuman lengths some take for success...or justice.
Three campfire secrets. Two witnesses. One dead in the trees. And the woman, thirty years later, bent on making the guilty finally pay.
1988. A group of outcasts gather at a small, prestigious arts camp nestled in the Maine woods. They're the painters: bright, hopeful, teeming with potential. But secrets and dark ambitions rise like smoke from a campfire, and the truths they tell will come back to haunt them in ways more deadly than they dreamed.
2018. Esteemed art professor Max Durant arrives at his protégé's remote home to view her graduate thesis collection. He knows Audra is beautiful and brilliant. He knows being invited into her private world is a rare gift. But he doesn't know that Audra has engineered every aspect of their weekend together. Every detail, every conversation. Audra has woven the perfect web.
Only Audra knows what happened that summer in 1988. Max's secret, and the dark things that followed. And even though it won't be easy, Audra knows someone must pay.
Advance Praise
"Gorgeous and absorbing, Dark Things I Adore is a stunningly executed tale of art, trauma and revenge. At once propulsive in plot and lyrical in style, it's the kind of novel you'll want to savor every sentence of―dark and deeply satisfying." –Katie Lowe, author of The Furies
"A smart, nuanced exploration of victims and villains, inspiration and theft, and the intersection of these things, in every artist. Pay attention to Katie Lattari. She's the real deal." –Sarah Langan, author of Good Neighbors
"I felt like I was being physically pulled into a dark forest while reading this psychological cat-and-mouse game, always aware that more danger lay ahead. With a constant sense of foreboding and lush imagery, Dark Things I Adore is a haunting, mesmerizing tour de force, everything about it a brutal sort of beauty." –Zoje Stage, USA Today and internationally bestselling author of Baby Teeth
Featured Reviews
Cheryl P, Reviewer
I loved the title of this novel, and was excited by the premise. It was a slow-burn kind of novel to begin with, but once the story was underway and all the characters had their feet under the table, I found myself increasingly enmeshed, and didn't want to put it down. I love novels set within academia, particularly exploring the dark undercurrents of those insular and often exclusionary worlds. That, combined with the revenge thriller slant, made for an intoxicating combination.
I loved that the story followed two timelines - the first at a rural art commune in the eighties, and the second in the present day, with respected artist and thesis advisor Max Durant visiting his brilliant student Audra to view her graduate collection. The links the author gradually revealed between past and present were deftly executed and well-paced, and the novel was beautifully written,
This is the first book I have read by this author but it won't be the last. An exceptional story of friendship, art, academia, revenge, and morality. I loved it.
Thank you to NetGalley, and to the publisher, who provided me with a free ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Reviewer 507803
4.5****
I hardly ever award anything the full 5 stars but this came pretty damn close!!
This book features camp secrets, a girl dead in the trees, and one vengeful women who wants these men to pay.
Max Durant, a has-been narcissistic and egoistic Arts professor is invited by his enigmatic and cool student, Audra, to her home town, expecting a lust filled weekend with his protégée. However, what he gets is something VERY different. Because what he doesn’t know is that Audra knows the truth about his fatal summer in 1988 at an art campus, where it ended with the suicide by hanging of a beautiful dead girl. And Audra has invited him there to make him pay.
I LOVED this. This was such a twisty book that I had to keep making notes throughout about my theories/hypothesise. And even when I was correct, it was exciting to read how the information splayed out across the pages.
I loved Audra as a character-she was great; a woman on a mission and is indeed vengeful (my favourite type of character!).
This book took place across 2 timelines and 3 different POV’s (one being of Audra, one of Max, and one of Juniper- a witness to the events in 1988). It was pageturning to go through these events and watching it all unfold, with the backdrop of a prestigious art college and world.
This book depicts trauma, lies, manipulations those that are complicit. I loved the academia setting in an arts college too. The author issues fantastic descriptions using art-based-terminology and depicts emotions such as terror in such a visceral way, it was hard not to imagine the settings and characters.
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