How to Make Friends With the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow - Book Review
(Trigger warning: grief, death of a family member, the foster system, child abuse, domestic violence. This post also contains affiliate links, which means that I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you)
First published in 2019, How to Make Friends With the Dark is Kathleen Glasgow’s second book. It follows similar themes to Girl in Pieces, and features a teenage girl who is experiencing unthinkable difficulties with her mental health.
For this reason, please take note of the trigger warnings above and make sure that you feel able to manage the emotional intensity of the book.
Here’s the synopsis:
“Here is what happens when your mother dies.
It’s the brightest day of summer and it’s dark outside. It’s dark in your house, dark in your room, and dark in your heart. You feel like the darkness is going to split you apart.
That’s how it feels for Tiger. It’s always been Tiger and her mother against the world. Then, on a day like any other, Tiger’s mother dies. And now it’s Tiger, alone.
Here is how you learn to make friends with the dark.”
What I thought:
The beginning of the story starts off just like any other young adult book. Tiger went to school, hung out with her best friend and had a crush on a boy. She was living a very normal teenage life right up until her mother suddenly dies, and with no other family to look after her, she is catapulted into foster care. It’s here that the tone of the book flips, and Tiger’s life is never the same again.
One thing that I love about Kathleen’s writing is her ability to craft emotionally charged novels that feel realistic. It’s intense but not too much, and the plot is appropriate for the subject matter.
While Tiger makes friends and connects with others, she doesn’t solve all of her problems by falling in love, which is a trope that I’ve come across in many other books. Don’t get me wrong, I love a romance story, but falling in love does not solve complex life trauma and Kathleen Glasgow knows that.
This book takes a critical look at the lacking foster care system in the US, and as a British person, I found that very interesting. In the story, Tiger is shuttled between homes, experiencing a complete lack of agency and little consistency. I really felt for the other children that she came across in the novel, and could have read a whole book about their lives too.
Family is an important theme within the book, and Kathleen explores the relationships between unconventional families really well: from Tiger’s original family of two with her mother, her foster homes, and the family unit that she ends up finding.
Ultimately, this is a book about a young person learning how to rebuild her life after it all fell apart, before she’d grown up and had an understanding of who she even was. It felt like an insight into how childhood trauma can impact on a young person’s development, .
Tiger is on a long journey, and although there is no happily ever after, I was left with a sense of hope and I felt that was a realistic place to leave the story. I loved this book, and if you enjoy emotionally intense young adult novels then I think you’ll love this one too.
You can buy a copy on Amazon here.