Dark Waters (Small Spaces Quartet)

One of my daughters LOVES to read and this is her favorite series…while my other daughter doesn’t like to read and yet she loves this series!! It’s awesome! Katherine Arden is an amazing author always throwing plot twists and unexpected turns at you. These book are super creepy and fun but not too creepy! One of my daughters isn’t a strong reader but these books are easy to follow along and the words aren’t too small so she breezes right through these! I would highly recommend this book and the other two books in the series!

Katherine Arden has done it again. Dark Waters is another creepy, twisty tale of ghosts, survival, and a grinning game-loving fiend who likes to play outside the world we live in and only loosely by the rules. I'm not going to lie, even as an adult these books have had me on edge. After finishing book 2 and starting book 3 last night, I nearly jumped out of my skin at one point: just after Ollie and her friends hear a knocking on their door, I heard a knock on mine. Except it was almost 1 am, and when I went to look and make sure the door was locked, there was no one there. I think my dog made the noise; maybe. I never saw him move, but what else would be knock-knock-knocking in the middle of the night? After reading these books, I'm not sure I want to know the answer...

Noooo!! I feel like I waited so long for this book to come out and now I'm right back where I started, dying for the next one to be released. I believe the next one will be the last of the series, and set in the summer, if the seasonal trend continues. Dark Waters by Katherine Arden was another fantastically creepy, spine tingling read. The same characters are back, who I've grown to know and love I really found all of these books to be great, but I think this one may be my favorite yet. I really enjoyed the castaway setting and it had a phenomenal, semi-cliffhanger ending. I highly recommend this series.

Ollie Adler, and her friends, Coco and Brian (and a new member of their gang, Phil) are back, and this spooky little adventure takes place in Spring on Lake Champlain. They decide to go out on an excursion boat to look for Vermont's version of the Loch Ness Monster. Coco's mom and Ollie's dad come along. They didn't expect to see an island not on any maps or to catch a four foot silver sea snake, but those happen, along with a lot of other creepy elements. This is the third of four in the Small Spaces quartet of books. This one seemed much shorter than the first two and ended on a cliffhanger, so of course I have to read the last book. A scary book that did not disappoint.

I loved Small Spaces and Dead Voices, but I found Dark Waters incredibly disappointing. There is much promise for this book. The front cover is amazing. I was excited that this book was from Brian’s point of view. It was nice that Paul was in the book. I loved the mention of the black spot and a lake monster. However, the problems with Brian’s character were not solved by making him the point of view character, instead they were amplified. The only characters who did anything important were Ollie and Coco, but we didn’t get to experience their actions because we were stuck with Brian. I was so disappointed that an opportunity to let him shine just emphasized what an under developed character he is who is languishing as the series progresses. The lake monster was also extremely disappointing. I could have done with more about Ollie and Coco and less about their parents. The whole book read like a set up for the next book. 20% of the ebook was chapters from Small Spaces. I felt cheated. Only giving this 3 stars because I love the first two books so much and because of the potential for this to have been a worthy addition to the series.

The Small Spaces Quartet started out incredibly strong with Small Spaces - one of my favorite books ever. I recommend reading Small Spaces as a stand-alone book (MAYBE coupled with Dead Voices, which is decent, but not as good as Small Spaces), as each of the ensuing three books in the series is a step down from the prior book in the series.

Dark Waters introduces to the quartet the "rushed and incomplete" feeling that permeates Empty Smiles and ultimately leaves the reader feeling unfulfilled by the quartet as a whole.

I was very, very let down by Empty Smiles - horrible to rush the concluding book of a series that started out so very well. Empty Smiles had so much potential, but the end result was more of an outline than a fully explored story.

Anyway, definitely read Small Spaces and, if you like it, consider reading Dead Voices. The final two books in the quartet are skippable. They only serve to taint the reader's enjoyment of the first two books of the quartet (Small Spaces and Dead Voices).