WHO WE WERE IN THE DARK

A quartet of teens meet one summer at Donner Lake in Northern California and reunite during subsequent school breaks to reestablish their bonds in this contemporary novel.

Nora and her older brother, Wesley, first go to the lake when their long-absent father suddenly reenters their lives, taking them to his family’s cabin in part to give their mom, who is ill, a break. Nora follows unpredictable Grace, who beckons to her after Nora watches her sneak out the window of her nearby cabin one night, and Wesley trails them to a meeting point Grace has set up with her friend Rand. In an eerily atmospheric narrative that moves sometimes confusingly between the present—when readers know that Grace has gone missing—and various points in the past when the group spent time together, a story emerges of a deeply felt but unconvincing camaraderie among the four and romances between Grace and Wesley and Nora and Rand. Grace’s role as the star that holds the other three in her orbit is made clear from the start, though her character isn’t developed deeply enough to make her hold on the others believable. The realistic subplot about Nora's and Wesley’s strained relationships with both their parents is a poignant one, and it proves more compelling than the central drama. All of the characters are White.

A somewhat engaging but ultimately meandering and uneven story.