Dexter in the Dark Book Review

I read it in under 5 hours, with distractions and having to feed and entertain a small child. This is actually a good thing--I speed-read when things are good. Had it taken me days to read it it would have meant it sucked and I was struggling to focus to continue to trudge through the story.

It's been a bit, a couple weeks, since I read it. I am still to this day unsure of how I feel about it.

On the one hand, it was interesting, to peek in on Dex again. On the other--quite a bit was predictable--even more was trite and facile. The psychology all lined up correctly (a HUGE pet peeve about the tv show). Doakes still alive is absolute bliss on the hysterical front. I don't want to give too much away, so I will leave it at that. I dropped the book and died laughing at his first entrance in the book--it was that--spectacular.

I am not too keen on this Dark Passenger version or back story--it throws all accountability and responsibility to forces that could really care less. It gives something quite inhuman, quite unhuman, humanity--and that belittles it and makes it less, takes away its awe, its power. It reduces it to offal, actually. Perhaps even less than that.

Had the whole Dark Passenger back story not been included in the book, the book would have been a much better story, in my opinion.

As always I am struck again at the level of writing. Now, I love Dexter--I love Jeff's work--but--these books are not written for the educated--these are written to be accessible to the poorly educated masses--and I am not talking about the un-educated--I am talking about the ------- under-educated--those in this country who learned most things to pass state tests and then promptly forgot it all--for those who do not like to hear or use big words, or any words with more than four letters at a time--for people who do not like to try to read above a 4th or 5th grade reading level. I am not in any way denigrating Jeff's writing--but look--I grew up reading Hemingway, Kafka, Poe, Lumley, even King, and so much more--I read real writers--people who used big words now and then. I read real writers who used the most obtuse language they could just because they could--and I still read them and adore them--because I enjoy the challenge and the mental exercise of it all. So when I read things like Dexter, part of me cries out for 'real writing' versus the easy way out of commercial success by writing down to the masses who would not strive to better themselves if paid--if paying for it.

Plus, my only other real issue with his writing is his complete neglect of the wet work. He never goes into detail on the wet work. I have studied psychology for 25+ years; I studied psychology and religion side by side--because at first I could not fathom religion or what would cause someone to adhere to such asinine assumptions, much less the outright hypocrisies and abuses, without a solid basis of psychology to back it up--and this led me to study 'abnormal' psychology, which to me is far more telling--not because it is 'abnormal' but because of the normalcy of so many conditions--like serial killing--how a mind can break things down and rationalise things....for whatever reason. If we knew how Dexter went about the actual work with his Dark Passenger, oh the things that could reveal about his inner workings. And above all else, I want to know the why of things--why things happen the way they do, what makes things happen, how things work....

So, I especially like the last few pages of Dexter the Third--especially with my own gamophobia--it struck a nice chord.
But with the Dark Passenger stuff--and with the boy seeing others and their Dark Passengers--I am not enthralled.
Would I buy the next Dexter book? Oh, baby, in a heart beat. I read Dex for the same reason I read Harry Potter--it may be bad (Rowling, not Lindsay) but I have to know what happens next....

So, I am about 50/50 on this book--I am still unsure how I feel about it. And that bothers me more than the book itself.

Other than my distinct appreciation that all the psychology fits appropriately, and the end scene is cool, I am pretty much at a loss as to what to say....read it and decide for yourself. Re-reading it didn't help me--I am still in the same space--not really disliking it enough to hate it--not really liking it enough to like it...and loving it is simply not an option. Maybe with the next book......