“Hurt people hurt people” is one of those truisms we’ve all heard at some point. But, is that all there is to it? Is there any further nuance or alternative results for those who experience trauma? Do we have the option and agency to learn from our past trauma and choose to use those experiences to grow and to help instead of inflict the hurt we’ve felt upon the world? THE DARKNESS GREETED HER, a Y/A supernatural horror/thriller written by Christina Ferko not only confronts us with these questions, it answers them with grace and beauty.
Following the death of her physically abusive, alcoholic father, Penny is sent to the therapeutic retreat, Camp Whitewood. There are seven other teens there who, themselves, are survivors of various trauma and who are also hopeful that the therapy offered by the camp will help them overcome their past. Things quickly take a dark turn when what first seems like Penny’s delusions become all too real, sending the campers down a road of supernatural terror fueled by their own fears and traumatic memories. A series of horrific encounters and brutal deaths climax to a final confrontation that reveals the truth behind the evil lurking in the woods of Camp Whitewood.
I’ve never read any of Christina Ferko’s previous books so I had no indication of her prosaic leanings or style going into this. I was immediately impressed by her elegantly worded descriptions and her meticulous maintenance of the tone of the story. It always felt like it was perpetually moving forward and never meandering. There was always a very deliberate momentum at work where no parts of the story felt like they overstayed their welcome and the pacing was even and well structured. The story’s main chapters are told in the first person point of view of Penny. These chapters are interspersed with vignettes told in the third person; each one focusing on a specific camper and the traumatic event that caused them to be a resident of Camp Whitewood.
Christina Ferko does an extraordinary job of respectfully exploring each character’s plight and how their specific experiences have impacted their mental health. With mental health being such an in focus topic in our current environment, there was no sense that she was capitalizing on that. Rather, I felt a true sense of empathy at the core of the story and by extension, the writer’s heart. The characters felt fully realized and not simply avatars to express the many facets of trauma.
My only negative critiques are minimal against an otherwise engaging and thoughtful work of fiction. I mentioned earlier that the book is peppered with a series of horrific encounters. I think there may have been a few too many of these encounters with the antagonist that created a diminishing return effect. Within those encounters, there were certain totems present that were representative of the traumatic event of each of the characters. These items were necessary to express the nature of how the protagonist functioned, but the way they were incorporated didn’t add much to the fear quotient of the scenes. If these items were placed more sparsely throughout the story, they may have had a bigger impact.
That’s it. Those are my only complaints. I really enjoyed this book without having to account much for the fact that I am not the target audience, which says a lot for the storytelling on display here. The elevated prose, the emotional core, the satisfying ending, it all worked.
I opened with a question; do hurt people only hurt people? And the answer to that is no. While, often, the pain we see inflicted on others is a direct result of past pain experienced by the perpetrators, we see many people who have chosen to use their trauma to help others cope with the effects of their own. Life is a series of chances to learn, to grow, to help and to heal. THE DARKNESS GREETED HER shows that, no matter how helpless or hopeless you may feel due to circumstance, you still matter and you still have a choice and a voice. The proof is that you’re still here. You’re still alive, so breathe in the dew scented air of this new morning… and live.
8.5 OUT OF 10
