Review: HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE DARK by Kathleen Glasgow

How to Make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I should’ve been prepared for this book. I devoured Kathleen Glasgow’s first book, Girl In Pieces, and I should’ve known her second novel would be just as heart-wrenching, haunting, and powerful.

How to Make Friends With the Dark is the story of Tiger Tolliver as she struggles to cope with the sudden and unexpected death of her mother. These pages are filled with grief, loss, and guilt, and we REALLY feel Tiger’s emotions. This book had me crying in so many places.

Not only does Tiger have to cope with the sudden loss of her mother, but she’s also introduced to family members she didn’t know existed in the course of the book. As the book so elegantly puts it, she has to get used to living without her mother while at the same time get used to living with others who she doesn’t know. And she also goes through the foster care system and is also imprisoned for a brief while (which was a huge shock to me).

We see Tiger really change in this book. We see her angry, lashing out, causing criminal damage, yet we really feel her.

The language is emotive and the imagery beautiful. The words are just SO powerful. I can’t emphasise that enough.

We see a wide range of people in this book. The abusive parents and caregivers, the kind adults who are trying to make it better, the lost boys and girls, and the parents in prison, just to name a few.

The characters are all so real. I feel we could just meet them to easily in the street, in the library, at the gym. And that’s the thing. This book shows how these people are everywhere. And they’re not unusual.

I’m almost at a loss for word as I write this review, that’s how good this book was. Though it was really hard to read at times. But the main thing it teaches its readers is you never know what others are going through, but there is a way to make friends with the dark—the overwhelming grief.