Kill Your Darlings - L.E. Harper - ★★★.¼

AUTHOR: L.E. Harper

GENRE: YA Fantasy

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A YA Fantasy covering some really dark topics. Took me some time to get into it, but I loved the ending. Will work better for YA readers. Check out the triggers.

Story Synopsis:

Our protagonist is an author who escapes from the pain of her real life by writing a YA Fantasy series set in the imaginary realm of Solera. Her books include interesting larger-than-life characters including shapeshifters and dragons. She loves all her characters, or as she calls them – her ‘darlings’, but knows that she can even kill them if it is right for the story.

But one morning, she wakes up in Solera without knowing how or why, with her beloved darlings thinking that she is Kyla, their leader and the main protagonist of the Solera books. The real Kyla is nowhere to be found. The author has entered their story at a point just before a major war. Now she must put her writing chops to real use, trying to figure out an ending that works for everyone.

The book comes to us in the first person perspective of the author, addressed as Kyla for most of the book.

I want to begin by admitting that this is a YA Fantasy, a genre I am not a huge fan of. I picked this up primarily for the premise. Imagine an author meeting her characters! What a wonderfully bizarre idea! While I have read books about fictional characters interacting with real people (the most popular one being Jodi Picoult’s Between the Lines), none of those involved the creator of those characters. So it was interesting to see how the author interacted with people who are supposedly a figment of her imagination and yet so real in her new universe.

At the same time, it is not exactly a fantasy but more of an allegorical take on mental health. There’s a strong theme of depression and suicidal ideation, which is present throughout the book in varying levels. Our narrator’s thoughts often get too dark and her inner monologues help us see the turmoil in her mind.

The writing is quite fast-paced and the book doesn’t digress much from its agenda. What truly elevated the book from above average to good were the final few chapters. I wondered how the portal swap would be explained, but it was done marvellously. These chapters generate a bittersweet feeling, and because of the somewhat graphic scenes, become tough to read. But they are the highlight of the book and bring the whole plot together neatly.

However, the book did have all the elements I dislike about YA fiction. The characters other than the narrator are quite unidimensional. There is a lot of first person rambling. And of course, there’s the expected romance. (As the author-character says in the book, a YA Fantasy must have romance!)

The world-building left me with mixed feelings. While I loved the various characters of the “fictional” world of Solera, (Who doesn’t love dragons!!), I found it quite difficult to visualise the place well. There is plenty of action but also plenty of talk, and the action sequences too are filled with conversations. The middle section gets especially repetitive.

I think I would have liked the book better had it begun in the author’s real world, and transitioned after a few chapters to her waking up in Solera. In the current format, the book begins with her being in Solera, and we get no glimpse of her backstory or the whats and whys of the strange swap. It was almost like a story within a story, but you get to see only the inner story. The main one is what you need to figure out when the first person narrator gives you little clues about her life on Earth.

For a debut indie work, this was a brave topic to tackle. I don’t know how I feel about the author’s confession that this is almost an autobiography. It made me quite uncomfortable, to be honest. (And also curious to know where the truth ended and the ‘fantasy’ began.)

All in all, the writing needed a little bit more finetuning, but regardless, it is a brave book that explores personal demons and the road towards redemption and healing in an unusual way. YA lovers might possibly enjoy this more as the writing style is typical to this genre.

My thanks to author L.E. Harper, Shivnath Productions, and NetGalley for the DRC of “Kill Your Darlings”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Content Warnings: Depictions of mental illness including depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. The suicide scene is pretty graphic; proceed with care.