Judy I. Lin’s newest book from the Rick Riordan Presents imprint at Disney is a frightening jump into the world of Taiwanese mythology. There will be many moments of terror for readers.
Ruby is your average high school student. She’s trying her best to please her parents’ wishes of success, while trying to be a positive role model to her younger sister Tina and brother Denny. The amount of pressure she experiences from her parents’ unrelenting attention for perfection is a daily struggle for her, but Ruby maintains her joy thanks to her love of playing the piano.
The problem for Ruby is that she doesn’t just have her family obligations and cultural expectations to keep in mind. She can see spirits, and they are not the friendliest group of spectral forces in the world. When Ruby is attacked by a demon that has left her with an injury, she soon learns that there is a whole other part of life that is much scarier and could have world changing influences for all.
With the help of her new friends Shen and Delia, Ruby soon learns that there is more at stake than just spirits that have refused to cross over. There are spirits and gods who look to come back to the side of the living and will do anything to obtain a body for their life to begin again. Ruby must soon face the fact that she is in danger and will have to start to believe in what she sees, and not hide from what is happening around her.
The Dark Becomes Her is a bold step in a very different direction for Rick Riordan Presents with its embrace of horror storytelling. Judy Lin’s book is not only a great tale of Taiwanese mythology and religion to help propel the narrative forward, but it also sustains a level of fear in the reader through various means.
Lin’s text unnerved me at parts with her description and level of detail, that it forced me to stop reading the book at night before sleeping. Sitting with my eyes closed after reading a couple of chapters sent my brain into overdrive. I felt dread for what was happening to Ruby, but I needed to keep reading. So, I switched to daylight hours for reading.
Ruby as a protagonist is much like any other child in this genre. She is a dutiful child who is trying her best, but what separates her from others in the written world of mythological tales is that Ruby is burdened by an unbelievable amount of pressure from her parents. We have seen in past books, like a certain one about a Greek demigod, where the mother is a guiding light who does everything possible to help her son. In The Dark Becomes Her, Ruby’s parents are taskmasters who are far from the sympathetic ear one might expect.
The parents in this story are immigrants to Canada, who strive to give their three children all that they could not have. In Ruby’s world, the parents are not terrible or unloving; they have strict expectations so that their children will grow up to be a success. Lin shows us what a snapshot of this world would be, and how cultural expectations are different. It doesn’t make the coldness or detachment of the parents in the book bad, instead it’s life to Ruby.
Tina is an interesting character because she fulfills the role of a child from a cultural background who rebels. Ruby is the dutiful child who abides her parents for the most part, while Tina is the rebel, who sneaks behind her parents’ back, lies about what she is doing, and ultimately brings near destruction to the family. The sister relationship between Ruby and Tina is also a standout for the book, because we see what looks to be two very different characters, and they are, but Ruby and Tina love each other. It just so happens that certain external factors are creating a rift between the two girls.
Shen and Delia round out the cast of characters as the ones who have answers for Ruby, and ultimately open her eyes to the world that has been around her the whole time. To Shen and Delia, Ruby is just like them, but for Ruby, it is their friendship that helps her to overcome her obedience and allows her to have the courage to do what is right.
Judy Lin has crafted a muti-layered story of family obligations, cultural heritage, and an in-depth tale of horror that is filled with the visual terror of blood and gore, but the psychological terror of doubt and fear of failure is cranked into overdrive.
There are moments of terror, jump scares from spirits, and familial love/duty that shapes the landscape of The Dark Becomes Her that as a reader you will be scared, and fascinated at the same time. Using Chinatown in Vancouver as a main location for her story was not only a brilliant choice by the author but it illuminates a central idea of the story that I took away from the text. There is so much that happens around us each day, that the memories and spirits that inhabit the spaces we walk through on our daily lives, are still there years later.
The true sense of horror for The Dark Becomes Her is not the death and destruction that infects the streets we walk through, rather the choices that we make which causes others pain.
The Dark Becomes Her is a gritty, edge-of-your-seat thriller, with enough chills to unnerve any reader. It did to this reader, and I look forward to seeing where the saga goes in a guaranteed book two.