Book Review- Dark Eyes by William Richter

Title: Dark Eyes

 Author: William Richter

Series:  Dark Eyes #1

Published:  15 March 2012 by Penguin

Length: 383 pages

Warnings: sex, not too detailed. Quite a bit of violence. Drugs TW sexual abuse, 

Source: Spinebreakers

Summary : Wally was adopted from a Russian orphanage as a child and grew up in a wealthy New York City family. At fifteen, her obsessive need to rebel led her to life on the streets.
Now the sixteen-year-old is beautiful and hardened, and she's just stumbled across the possibility of discovering who she really is. She'll stop at nothing to find her birth mother before Klesko - her darkeyed father - finds her. Because Klesko will stop at nothing to reclaim the fortune Wally's mother stole from him long ago. Even if that means murdering his own blood. But Wally's had her own killer training, and she's hungry for justice.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for teens, this debut thriller introduces our next big series heroine!

Review: Wally is a Russian, adopted into an American family. Age 15, she moves out, onto the streets of New York. This is the story of a year later. On a visit to  Brighton Beach postal-shop-copy-place-thing, where they cater to Russian customers,  she gets given a mysterious envelope with her Russian name on it. in it-a letter from her Russian mother. From there, she learns more about her family. For example, the fact that her father is a mafia boss. And he wants to find his ex-lover/wife/whatever (I’ve forgotten). And he’s not picky about he finds her.

Being adopted, I took a bit more interested in this. I’ve never tried to, or wanted to find my birth parents (something I don’t think would be easy with a pool of a billion people) but it must be interesting when you get details of your birth family just given to you without warning.

Wally takes this fairly well, and takes lots of things in her stride.  She’s a very strong girl, who is good at finding things out after learning things that capture her interest. She’s also a great friend to Ella and Tevin and Jake. There’s such a strong sense of bond between them. However, I didn’t connect with her, or any other character. She doesn’t have as much to worry about compared to the others, so I didn’t really care for her either.

There’s a lot of action, and a fair bit of violence. The first chapter involves a murder. The mafia are involved. People die. It’s definitely a big thriller. Lost of twists and turns, many predictable. Some things do happen a bit more easily  that I’d have liked or would have been interesting. The ending was...er, ok. Not saying that in the it was mediocre way. I’m saying it in the ......*long pause* *hesitant er* Ok way. can’t find a gif to sum this up. But yeah. The ending. I liked it. this would definitely play out well as a film, what with the really fast pacing and turnabouts.

I found it quite confusing. I’m not sure why, I just didn’t get into it. The writing is ok, but there were some annoying things about it. it’s a bit too street, and it doesn’t really fit.

I like the fact that things happen suddenly. Even if you are expecting them, the very bad, very major things happen so suddenly it is realistic, and everyone has to adjust in short periods of time.

For a book market at teens, it is gritty. It’s nice not to be talked down to. Nothing’s pulled back, we get all the sad and gory details. Having never read  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I can’t comment too well on the fitting of this as a teenage version. From the little I saw of the film, this is in a similar vein, and probably does live up to its tagline.

Overall:  Strength 3 tea to a fast thriller, that wasn’t as good as I’d expected.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website |