If you love the idea of found family and dark academia mixed with magic, Lovely Dark and Deep has to be on your TBR. From an author I’ve absolutely loved, Lovely Dark and Deep is a heartfelt story about friendship and confronting the past. Keep reading this book review of Lovely Dark and Deep for my full thoughts.
Summary
Ellery West has always been home for Faith. After an international move and a childhood spent adjusting to a new culture and a new language, the acclaimed school for magic feels like the only place she can be herself. That is, until Faith and another student walk into the forest, and only Faith walks out.
Marked with the red stripe across her uniform that designates all students deemed too dangerous to attend regular classes, Faith becomes a social pariah, an exile of Ellery West. But all she has to do is keep her head down for one more year to graduate, and she gets to keep her magic. Because when students fail out of Ellery West, they have their magic taken away. Forever. And Faith can’t let that happen.
Except terrifying things are still happening to students, and the dark magic that was unleashed in the forest still seems to be at work. To stop it, Faith and the other Red Stripes will have to work together, risking expulsion from the magical world altogether.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
In Lovely Dark and Deep, my favorite element has to be the found family. I am a sucker for a good story about friends which come together and support us. To witness how it feels when we find people who see us, who will support us, and listen to us. For Faith after being ostracized, she hasn’t felt what it feels to have friends. To have people in our corner, who care where we sneak off to at night.
With flashbacks, Lovely Dark and Deep examines where it all went wrong. Where we are blamed for choices out of our control and find ourselves immersed deeper than we ever imagined. Faith and her new found allies, but also maybe friends, have to figure out what’s going on deeper. The secrets which have only begun to rot, to fester, and which will come out no matter what.
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What’s better in a found friendship than a whole group of people who are overlooked. Who have found themselves feared, on the fringes, breaking the rules of the systems around them. Faith is certainly the main character, but I appreciated getting to know the other side characters. All of their stories, and their futures, are tied to this past. To the school, the ground they walk on, and their decisions. Find Lovely Dark and Deep on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.