{"id":478,"date":"2018-10-24T19:43:40","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T17:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/readerwitch.com\/?p=478"},"modified":"2018-10-24T19:43:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T17:43:40","slug":"the-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/2018\/10\/24\/the-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Darkness by Ragnar J\u00f3nasson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Genre: police procedural.\u00a0\u2b50\ufe0fStars from Goodreads: 3.61.\u00a0\u2b50\ufe0fStars from me: 2.<\/p>\n

The Darkness<\/em><\/a> by Ragnar J\u00f3nasson enraged me more than I\u00a0ever expected to be enraged by a book. I had to keep myself away from any social media in order to decompress first and only then to reform my indignation into a more coherent review.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Spoiler free story of The Darkness<\/em>.<\/h4>\n

The Darkness<\/em> is the first book in a series about a detective in Iceland. Her name is Hulda Hermannsd\u00f3ttir. She\u2019s about to retire but is given an opportunity to investigate one last case of her choice. She picks up an old case about a Russian immigrant found dead in the river.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s good about The Darkness<\/em> by Ragnar J\u00f3nasson.<\/h4>\n

The protagonist is well crafted. Hulda Hermannsd\u00f3ttir is quite a likeable character. It\u2019s easy to root for her and to sympathise with what she\u2019s going through.<\/p>\n

The writing (and I guess the translation) is decent. Nothing is too simplistic yet the story is easy to read.<\/p>\n

All the elements of a good detective story are there. There are no holes in the plot, all dots connect in the end.\u00a0 <\/span>The plot did sometimes depend on the stupidity of some characters but this stupidity looks quite plausible.<\/p>\n

There are two dramatic background stories, one of which had a very unexpected twist, that’s when I thought I might like the book eventually.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s really bad about The Darkness<\/em> by Ragnar J\u00f3nasson.<\/h4>\n

The ending of the story is a disaster! How could one tell a story like this?! Why?! Books are supposed to bring some level of satisfaction. Sure, not all books do. But this is the first book I\u2019ve ever met that intentionally betrays the reader. Is it done for the novelty or the shock effect? It\u2019s not only that your expectations are not met, it’s also the way the details of the betrayal are savoured. You are shown more than you need to see just to disgust you even more.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m seriously suspecting The Darkness<\/em> started a phobia in me. How many books are out there that will use me this way?\u00a0 How can I choose the right book if good writing, well-developed characters and a well-knitted plot are no longer indicators of a good book?<\/p>\n

Final thoughts on The Darkness<\/em>.<\/h4>\n

Obviously I cannot recommend the book as I wouldn\u2019t want to put anybody through a similar experience. That being said, there are tons of positive reviews of\u00a0The Darkness<\/em>. I even saw readers being happy about being shocked this way. Thus, even though I will never pick up the second book in the series\u00a0you might still like it. Consider yourself warned and choose for yourself \ud83d\ude42 .<\/p>\n

Big thanks to the publishers for the copy in exchange for my obviously honest review!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This book enraged me more than I\u00a0ever expected to be enraged by a book. I had to keep myself away from any social media in order to decompress first and only then to reform my indignation into a more coherent review. Continue reading The Darkness by Ragnar J\u00f3nasson<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[125,140,228,318,409,461,482,486,578,579,580,646],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}