The thing I found most fascinating about this book were the descriptions from the POV of those born in the dark. There were no colours and nothing described that could be "seen," it was all described as having been heard or sensed or felt or "sonned," which I suppose is a very specific kind of echolocation. I liked the way that the characters had a newspapper that they read with their fingers, and special tools to help them write, both their own language and the written script of the Lightborn. I really want to read the next book to see how life on the Lightborn side is described. I'm not really sure what I can say about this since when I really like a book I tend to be less articulate as to why than if I'm pulling a book apart.Basically it just seemed to be a hit with my peculiarities of taste. The premise combined with the cover and names did make me wonder at first if this was going to be more of a book for the YA 'gothic lite' fantasy audience, which while I can like those books tends to mean that I don't feel hugely involved with the characters - and for me that's a key thing involved in falling in love with a book. However, my tentatively pre-formed ideas were unfounded. The characters were so well formed and engaging that not only did I fall quite hard for the protagonists but I got so involved that I started speaking aloud to them while reading (I got a bit spluttery at Telmaine at one point, though thankfully my worries were not realised), and the unknown antagonists seem mysterious, sinister and rather creepy; I'm half hoping we get a trip to the Shadowlands in the next books. The world setting as a whole is much darker and maturely formed than I thought it might be; we get glimpses of a long developed history for both Dark and Lightborn, and how their societies run both separately and together seem very plausible (granted we've not see a lot of the Lightborn world yet though, I'm guessing that's left to the next book). The plot is fast-moving but not at the expense of character depth or detail, and since I seem to be a horrible sadist when it comes to fiction the fact that the characters get a really rough time of it only helped my enjoyment. The one thing I would say is about the cover art; it's beautiful, but since the Darkborn are blind it would've been nice to have made that more obvious on the cover, since I assume the lady is meant to be Telmaine what with her gloves.
What do You think about Darkborn (2009)?
I just couldn't get into this one. Gave it 100 pages and was so bored that I gave up.
—Mia
I just couldn't get into this book - too weird.
—Meghan
