A Step Past Darkness

I like Vera Kurian as an author, and LOVED Never Saw Me Coming. I still hype that book. I saw the author do a panel a couple years ago – Bouchercon 2022? – and she really sold me on Never Saw Me Coming and this lead to my well-annotated and tabbed copy.

I enjoyed so much in A Step Past Darkness, but I found it plagued with pacing issues, and one segment really detracted from the story for me, to the point that I seriously considered DNFing. 

The blurb on the back of the book really buries that there's a strong supernatural thread in this story that moves it more into horror than thriller. I'm cool with this because I read and love horror, and that this book pays homage to It (Stephen King) isn't exactly something I'm going to complain about. Still, if it weren't my thing, I'd feel deceived and possibly annoyed. 

I would love to read more books with a supernatural element from this author. 

The places where this story overlaps or echoes It are the best parts for me. Not because I find it derivative, or because these aspects weren't strong on their own, but because these are some of my favorite tropes of all time. 

I love stories about strong friendships in childhood. I love the idea of having to face childhood fears again in adulthood. I seek out books that understand that not everyone is listened to equally – that some characters have the added complication of being a part of a group or groups with less power, less chance of being believed. 

Children/teens are one of those groups. I'm always going to love when a group comes together to be more than the sum of their parts, and to support one another. 

And I sentimentally love the thought of childhood friends reuniting, even if it's to face danger. I watch the original made-for-TV “It” for those relationships. It's a weird comfort movie, but here we are. 

I cared about these characters, and where they would end up. I initially cared a lot about the central mystery, but a lot of that interest waned with time. Early on, we find out one of the main characters dies. Maddy. Hey, it's in the blurb. I really appreciated the handling of this character. We meet her as a pious Regina George, but she is written in a way that made me root for her. But this author made me root for a psychopath one time. But I hated that she died, in the best way. I think it would have packed a bigger punch if the layout of the ... well, next paragraph, 

The book is dual timelines. The first timeline finds our characters teens in 1995 and the second timeline is them again in 2015. All the main characters get POV chapters in both timelines. The book jumps back and forth between the timelines. 

I'm into the dual timelines, as should be clear, but I think I needed the story to be linear. With the POVs and the jumping back and forth it sometimes made it feel like there was no momentum. in either year. And on occasion we had to cover the same ground twice. In 2015, because we hadn't arrived at the moment in 1995, details were revealed in order to make sense that we eventually have to read in 1995. Again, it messed with the sense of momentum, and added unnecessary pages. (I've read some tomes in my time, but these 502 pages made it the longest book of 2024 so far.)

The part that really detracted for me felt discordant with the rest of the book in a way that my enjoyment never rallied from. The most non-spoilery way I can communicate this is that there's a portion of the story where we find out a lot of the back story about what's going on, but it feels very tonally different. Scripted. Obviously, this is all fiction, but in a novel it felt like for a while we were in a 90s TV show where the characters need to know things fast, so they're for the time of this episode going to stumble upon just what they need, no more because they'll be swept to the next thing they need to know, and be helped to do so in a way that when transferred to another medium reveals the artificiality of it all. 

As much as I become immersed in a novel, I don't quite forget it's a novel, but I suspend disbelief. I invest in that world, and the general underpinnings of novels. This portion asked me to abide by a different set of rules and underpinnings and made me hyper-aware this is all made up. I specify a 90s show because novels, TV, and cinema (why do I hear this in the voice of Lazslo from What We Do in the Shadows?) today are more stylistically similar. 

I hated this shift so much that I put the book aside for a couple days. I saw I had 10 days left on the library loan, silently apologized to the 5 people waiting, and took some time. I didn't DNF because I really did care about these characters, but it was never the same. 

I in no way think this issue is going to be universal. I in no way want to discourage anyone from reading a book that really has a lot going for it because of my issue. I'm truly only sharing my stumbling block. 

The bad guy provided some chills, but he wasn't Pennywise scary, by any means, and I would have liked this amped up, to be honest.  

Spoilers about the ending, various events, and the season 3 finale of Buffy. Honestly, only read this if you've read the book. The ending, if I'm not missing anything, was extremely happy under the circumstances. I realize it would have been stronger if Jia had died, and it feels like a cop out that she didn't, but I can't be mad. I wanted this characters to be okay. I wish Maddy could have been okay. And Milky, who seems to have died of old age, but I still want a miracle.  When the pastor died, it reminded me of how the mayor died on Buffy – with that moment of, “Well, I guess that's that.” That's the type of 90s TV reference I love! I will choose to believe that was intentional.

I'm horrible at summing up. Good book with tropes I like. Pacing was a bit slow. Horror could have been more horrifying. One thing that really bugged me. Would love to see more horror by Vera Kurian, or anything, really. I want to follow these characters forever, but instead will wish them well in all future endeavors. The next person in line for this book at the library is going to wake up to a nice surprise – unless they're like me and have a ridiculous amount of books on hold. 

Deliciously Dark And Creepy Multi-Layered Tale Reminiscent Of IT And Stranger Things. This is one of those dual timeline tales where a group of six kids get pulled together as teens to fight off an incredible supernatural evil in their rural smalltown hometown, then as adults have to come back home to end it once and for all. So like I said in the title, pretty well a blatant homage, all these years later, to IT. And of course, some say "homage", others say "blatant rip off". I'll leave that to those who choose to read both my review and Kurian's work. But if you have problems with dual timeline or multiple perspectives... just know up front that this book isn't for you. It is truly a great story, but meh, even I know of what I know to be *phenomenal* stories that even I simply can't read. (Looking at you, Lord of the Rings.)

Where Kurian shines particularly brightest is in giving these characters realistic Xennial (that weird merger of the youngest of Generation X with the oldest of the Millenials) character arcs, and yes, that does include LGBT discovery for at least one character. Again, if that is a problem for you... maybe not your book here.

Particularly strongest for me personally was Maddy's own arc, particularly as a teen, as she is deeply immersed in conservative Christian culture of the early and mid 90s - as I myself was as a male just a few years behind her in the same period and in a similar small town atmosphere. (Here, our kids are Sophomores that school year, and I was in 7th grade that year - so just 3 yrs younger than our characters.) Maddy's arc in some ways has a lot of things that were specific to females in that culture in that era, but in a lot of other ways were common across teenagers of both sexes during this period, and this is where I connected with the story the deepest. Maddy's struggles as she realized what was going on and her role within it, and her desperate attempts to try to change and correct things... yeah, that was the early years of my own young adult form. So again, and particularly for any females reading this - there is quite a bit of discussion and action around purity culture in the conservative evangelical American church circa the mid 90s, including some of its atrocities being actively shown "on screen". If this is something you can't handle exploring in fiction form 30 yrs later (OW!)... maybe not the book for you.

Overall this was a deliciously dark and creepy tale that hit so many strong notes and was so very layered and multi-dimensional... it really was quite a ride. I very much enjoyed it, and I very much look forward to seeing what Kurian thinks up next. Very much recommended.