Review: The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman

The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Published on: September 10, 2013

They called it the killing day. Twelve people dead, all in the space of a few hours. Five murderers: neighbors, relatives, friends. All of them so normal. All of them seemingly harmless. All of them now dead by their own hand . . . except one. And that one has no answers to offer the shattered town. She doesn't even know why she killed—or whether she'll do it again.

Something is waking in the sleepy town of Oleander's, Kansas—something dark and hungry that lives in the flat earth and the open sky, in the vengeful hearts of upstanding citizens. As the town begins its descent into blood and madness, five survivors of the killing day are the only ones who can stop Oleander from destroying itself. Jule, the outsider at war with the world; West, the golden boy at war with himself; Daniel, desperate for a different life; Cass, who's not sure she deserves a life at all; and Ellie, who believes in sacrifice, fate, and in evil. Ellie, who always goes too far. They have nothing in common. They have nothing left to lose. And they have no way out. Which means they have no choice but to stand and fight, to face the darkness in their town—and in themselves. 

My Thoughts:
I.HAVE.CHILLS PEOPLE!  OMG that was amazing!  I love love love all the creepy right now and this book right here tops my list of all time favorite creepy book!

Oleander is a small town where not much happens outside of the local drug dealers.  The Prevettes keep to themselves so the town just lets them be.  One day something happened and the people of Oleander went mad.  They called it the Killing Day, twelve people murdered in one day.  No one could explain what happened so the town just picked itself back up and moved forward.  Nobody forgot what happened, but there wasn't much to do except clean up the mess.  That was before the tornado.  After the storm whatever started that Killing Day raised its ugly head again and this time it wouldn't go away so easily.

So good!!  I never expected what came out of these pages.  I have read one other book from this author and I wasn't really impressed so I wasn't sure how this one would go, but oh my she totally blew every other YA thriller out of the water.  The Waking Dark is thrilling, spin chilling, dark, and just so so amazing.  I was completely creeped out the entire time I was reading this and it was so crazy to read each scene as they all got crazier and crazier.  In one part you read about a husband who caught his wife cheating so he kills the other guy and with the blessing of the town sheriff he goes home to stone her to death.  I mean WTF??!! The town looked at him like that was acceptable behavior for her crimes.  Crazy!  The book has many more insane scenes and that back of all this there is an evil that you can feel through the pages.  At one point I even felt like the pages were whispering to me *shudders*

This is also the first book I have read in this genre where everything wasn't tied up neatly in a bow.  I was really surprised when I got to the last few pages and things were still really crazy.  Usually there is hope at the end of the tunnel but what this author has done feels more real and I really respect her for that.  If there had been a rainbow at the end I wouldn't have loved this as much.  The whole story was dark and it needed a dark ending in my opinion.

I don't know if I will ever find another book that will top this one.  It is just amazing and I know I keep saying that but really that is all you need to know.  Go buy it!!

5 snowflakes