Kelly Gay

Better Part of Darkness worked for me and didn't work for me. It worked for me in that our protagonist, Charlie, makes a lot of mistakes and she pays dearly for most of them. She's not naive, or even particularly idealist honestly, and she knows that the world is in a horrible place, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't keep trying. She also makes choices that aren't usually seen of the 'hero'. All that was very refreshing and interesting for me. Apparently even I have limits on how many heroes/heroines can make really bad choices and still not pay for it. And I do mean really bad choices in Charlie's case. Not 'That was a stupid thing to do!', but the 'Oh. My. God. That was bad.' variety.

The problem I had was that for all the fun and interesting that was Charlie, she was possibly the only character I wanted to read about. There were plenty of other characters--informants, coworkers, her partner, bad guys, etc--which is probably what made it hard to want to know any of them. Aside from her daughter and her partner, everyone else just came and went. While this works great for later in the series, when Kelly may want to call upon them and dive a bit deeper, for a first book it clutters my attention. It felt like each time I met one person someone new popped up.

The amount of detail Kelly puts into her version of Atlanta is awe-inspiring honestly. I've been there twice in my life and can recognize some of the places that Charlie talks about 'from before' but this Atlanta is so different. Its almost a character on its own honestly.

In the end I had trouble enjoying this book because I was uncertain who was doing what and when, or who was who. I have a feeling when the second book is released Kelly will have a stronger grasp on who she wants to have running around in her world however and look forward to that book.… (mer)