The Other Side of Dark

Publishers Weekly

What good is being able to see and speak to the dead if it doesn't help solve a mystery surrounding them? Fifteen-year-old Katie Mullens can interact with ghosts, including that of her father, though not of her more recently deceased mother. Law Walker is the mixed-race son of activists--an academic father who's a prominent advocate for slavery reparations ("Even in pajamas, standing at the top of the stairs and saying, ‘Susan, I have lost my toothbrush,' his voice quivers with the weight of four hundred years of injustice") and a mother struggling to save a historic Boston building. Forging a friendship as outsiders--their classmates have written off Katie as crazy, and Law is a self-described geek trying to escape his domineering father's shadow--Katie and Law dive into a thickening tangle involving slavery, a treasure, and an old cabal that has modern-day repercussions for living and dead alike. Alternating between the teenagers' distinct and searching first-person narratives, and combining real history with quests for identity both personal and national, adult author Smith's YA debut is much more than just a ghost story. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)

Children's Literature - Dana Benge

It has been a year since Katie Mullens's mother died in a tragic accident. Since then, Katie's talent for drawing has taken a dark turn. Now she draws horrible, bloody pictures and talks to dead people. Everyone is convinced Katie is crazy; especially her friend, Law Walker, whose Ivy League parents do not approve of his spending so much time with her because she is crazy, she is from the wrong side of town, and she is white. But Katie's ability to talk to ghosts has led her to uncover secrets kept since the Civil War that threaten the historic home Law and his mother are fighting to preserve. When she begins to share these secrets with Law, and joins his mother's campaign to save the old house, her drawings become more bizarre than ever, and Katie is convinced that she is haunted by more dead people than just George, the young boy with Down Syndrome, and her dad. But these dead people seem to want something from her; something that it may cost Katie her life to give them. The book is based in part on actual events told to the author, and deals with issues of the Civil War, teenage interracial dating, and graphic depictions of conditions aboard slave ships and slave life on plantations. The book contains some graphic language, and one scene of teenage sexuality. The book has a very realistic feel despite its gothic elements due in part to Smith's sensitive, but not overly emotional treatment of teenage interracial relationships. Reviewer: Dana Benge

VOYA - Vikki Terrile

Katie has seen ghosts since her mother died; lately she has been compelled to draw what she sees. It is her drawings that get the attention of Law, a boy who had a crush on Katie years ago but was too afraid to do anything about it. The son of the country's leading scholar on reparations, Law wants to be an architectural historian, despite his father's objections. When Law realizes what Katie is seeing and that together they may be able to save an old house, haunted as much by secrets as ghosts, Law must decide if he is brave enough to stand up to his father, and Katie must decide if she is brave enough to let go of the past. There is a lot going on in Smith's debut novel for teens. Told by Katie and Law in alternating chapters, it is part ghost story, part mystery, part history lesson, part family drama, part romance. Smith raises difficult and thought-provoking questions about race and the lingering evils of slavery through Law's biracial experience and the history of the house he is fighting to save. The visions Katie sees of the tortured men, women, and children, bought and sold like cattle and treated like they were even less than that, are horrifying and brutal. While some of the power of these scenes is lost in the bulky story and occasionally awkward writing, readers will still learn a great deal about the darkest side of our shared history through this novel and will likely be left wanting to know more. Reviewer: Vikki Terrile

School Library Journal

Gr 7–10—Law Walker and Katie Mullens couldn't be more different. He's the son of a wealthy African-American historian and a white architectural historian. She's a talented artist from a poor family who, after the death of her mother, begins to draw what she sees: ghosts and the horrific ways they died. Katie and Law are drawn together by Pinesbank, an estate that Law's father wants destroyed because of its ties to the slave trade, his mother wants restored because of its place in Boston history, and that Katie knows is important because of her new friendship with the ghost of a boy who lived there. While the premise may seem like that of many other supernatural romances, there is a depth to this title that others are lacking. Law is torn between his mother, whose passion for architecture he shares, and his strident father, who has built his career on working toward reparations and expects his son to follow in his footsteps. Katie is trying to hang on through her grief. Details of her visions and conversations with the dead will haunt readers, even as they're thinking about how race shapes actions and relationships, and how the past can change the present. Recommended for fans of paranormal romance and historical fiction alike.—Karen E. Brooks-Reese, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA

Kirkus Reviews

With both biological parents dead and a loner reputation, 15-year-old Katie's life is complicated enough even before she begins communicating with the dead. Law Walker, meanwhile, walks between his parents' political passions: His African-American father wants to destroy a slave trader's historic house (the now-demolished Pinebank, in Boston), while his Caucasian mother seeks to preserve it. When Katie and Law cross paths in front of Pinebank, they begin working together to solve the house's mysteries. The narrative is unashamedly didactic; what with Law's conflicted racial identity, the reparations debate and a random-feeling scene in which Katie psychically names deceased African slaves, the author's hand dominates the tale. Propelled forward by force rather than genuine character development, the plot is bloated and unwieldy. An historical note with information on Pinebank, the family that owned it and its designer would have been enormously helpful to readers in parsing this narrative, especially due to its reimagined ending of the Pinebank facility. Smith's attempt to use the historic home's story to explore identify conflicts creates a sadly jumbled mess. (Paranormal. YA)

From the Publisher

The Other Side of Dark.

Smith, Sarah (Author)

Nov 2010. 320 p. Atheneum, hardcover, $16.99. (9781442402805).

Crazy Katie sees and draws ghosts of real people who were killed in horrid circumstances. Law Walker,

the son of a black Harvard professor and white landscape architect, dreams of becoming an architectural historian. His father believes in reparations; his mother, historical preservation. All the characters collide in the planned demolition of Pinebank, a historic house central to Frederick Law Olmstead’s Emerald Necklace park system in Boston. As Law begins to realize that Katie’s visions hold the key to saving Pinebank, he falls for her, despite her oddities. Well-known adult author Smith, who confesses to have loved ghost stories since childhood, has written an intricate YA debut that weaves complicated racial issues into a romantic, mysterious novel based on a controversial event in recent Boston history. Both adult and teenage characters are likable and authentically complex. Katie’s visions of slavery and Law’s father’s address to the Boston City Council make for challenging reading that will prompt readers to reconsider the burden of history we all carry, regardless of race or origin.

— Frances Bradburn, BOOKLIST, October 15, 2010

The Other Side of Dark

Sarah Smith, S&S/Atheneum, $16.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-4424-0280-5

What good is being able to see and speak to the dead if it doesn't help solve a mystery surrounding them? Fifteen-year-old Katie Mullens can interact with ghosts, including that of her father, though not of her more recently deceased mother. Law Walker is the mixed-race son of activists—an academic father who's a prominent advocate for slavery reparations ("Even in pajamas, standing at the top of the stairs and saying, ‘Susan, I have lost my toothbrush,' his voice quivers with the weight of four hundred years of injustice") and a mother struggling to save a historic Boston building. Forging a friendship as outsiders—their classmates have written off Katie as crazy, and Law is a self-described geek trying to escape his domineering father's shadow—Katie and Law dive into a thickening tangle involving slavery, a treasure, and an old cabal that has modern-day repercussions for living and dead alike. Alternating between the teenagers' distinct and searching first-person narratives, and combining real history with quests for identity both personal and national, adult author Smith's YA debut is much more than just a ghost story. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)

—Publishers Weekly, 10/18/2010