All the Colors of the Dark
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My lovely Pure Barre boss, Leslie, lent me this book, and while she’s a fabulous person with a great taste in books, she apparently has poor eyesight. This was my first foray into a large-print book and it drove me bananas. How far along am I actually? Are other people looking at the print and judging me? Perhaps I need to self-reflect on what this says about me. Either that or I need to read a book full of footnotes now to cancel out the large print.
Fortunately, I was able to ~see past~ the print because I was immediately sucked in. The first section of the book is instantly gripping and I couldn’t put it down. Whitaker, the author, does that thing where he opens with ominous foreshadowing and then builds suspense until said ominous situation occurs. This was very effective on me.
Then, things started to peter out. The non large print version is 600 pages and I think he could have chopped about 200. I understood the need for time to pass; the doomed sense of tireless but fruitless endeavors was integral to the story, but I think it went beyond serving its purpose and reached tedious territory.
That’s not to say that I don’t like long, passage-of-time-vibe books. The Goldfinch is one of my favorite books specifically because I loved growing alongside the main character. But while Patch and Saint (two of the main characters in All the Colors of the Dark) are very interesting, the character development was not as strong. I understood why they fell into certain patterns of behavior, but I still didn’t feel that close to them.
In terms of the writing itself, I went back and forth. Oftentimes, their speech was overly romanticized and not realistic. For example, the police chief tells his protege, “‘Do something meaningful. Or maybe just mean everything you do’” as if he’s a throw pillow. It irked me that the kids talked both too maturely and abstractly for their age. In a different setting, this would have bothered me more; however. painting is a motif in this novel and the writing takes on a dreamy, larger-than-life, artistic quality. So, even when things were overly dramatic, I gave it more leeway and leaned in. So big of me!
When I went to post this review, I discovered that I’d read a completely unmemorable Christopher Whitaker book in the past: We Begin at the End. I truly don’t recall a single second of this book, but according to my review, I hated it. My experience with All the Colors of the Dark was much more of a highs-and-lows journey. I loved the first part, grew weary of the middle, and liked how it wrapped up full circle to an extent. I’m glad that I got clear resolutions, but I actually think the writing might have been better if we didn’t (pending execution, of course). At the very least, it would have been a bolder choice. Zooming out, it seems that Whitaker had a very strong, compelling story but then wasn’t totally sure how to land the plane. He shoved some plot devices in there and in the process, overwrote, tying every loose end regardless of necessity (ex: Saint’s secret revealed at the end, iykyk). That being said, the story had it’s surprises that I genuinely enjoyed and some unique characters who transcended stereotypes (Misty was actually my favorite character). All the Colors of the Dark receives 3 out of 5 flames.
