A Hypnotic Read… With an Ending That Lost Me
Today we’re talking about All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker, a book I read a couple of weeks ago that completely swept me away… until the ending left me feeling weirdly empty and frustrated in a way that’s hard to describe.
The Reading Experience
This is a 608-page doorstop — the kind of book I normally hesitate to start because, let’s be honest, who has that kind of time with four kids under six? But once I finally downloaded it (after seeing every sticker imaginable slapped on its cover — Read With Jenna, etc., even though I have no idea who Jenna is), I was shocked by how completely hypnotic the writing was.
Short chapters — often only three to five pages — make the book fly. And the prose is lush. So much attention to nature: the trees, the lake, the sky, the birds, the bees. (You know that last part delighted me.)
And it’s set in Missouri! A fictional town called Monteclair, but absolutely recognizable as somewhere just outside St. Louis. Every time Whitaker referenced a place we’ve actually been, I felt this sweet little spark of recognition. A book set in Missouri that celebrates how beautiful it is here? Thank you. 💚
1975, Three Teenagers, and a Disappearance
The story begins in 1975 with three teenagers:
- Patch (real name Joseph), who lost an eye and wears a pirate-like patch
- Saint, his brilliant, nature-loving best friend
- Misty, their wealthy classmate
Patch stumbles upon Misty being abducted, intervenes, and is taken instead. He’s held in total darkness for nearly a year, with only the voice of a mysterious girl — Grace — keeping him sane. When he’s finally rescued (by Saint, who pieces the clues together at thirteen!), no one believes Grace ever existed. Patch dedicates the next three decades to finding her.
Meanwhile, Saint grows into a detective, and Patch grows into an anti-hero, robbing banks to fund missing-girl charities. The push-pull between them — detective and fugitive — becomes one of the book’s most compelling threads.
All of this is rich, layered, emotionally complex. I devoured it.
Where It Started to Lose Me
Here’s the thing: this book is often shelved as a “mystery thriller,” and I would absolutely not call it that. It’s a family drama with slow-burn mysteries woven throughout. Beautifully written, yes, but very slow in the middle — almost 200 pages where I kept thinking, “Okay… but can we get to the point now?”
And then came the ending. Oh. My. Gosh. The ending.
If you don’t want spoilers, stop reading here. 🚨
(And truly — if you haven’t read this yet and plan to, skip to the bottom.)
🚨 SPOILERS AHEAD 🚨
Turns out the town doctor — the one originally arrested when Saint found blood on a mattress — wasn’t murdering girls at all. He was secretly performing abortions for teenagers. The girl Patch believed was with him in captivity? Her identity reveal was… not satisfying.
Then we get a religious zealot villain murdering girls who had abortions, not just in Missouri but across the entire country, one random location at a time. The logic here felt like it dissolved in my hands the second I touched it.
And Misty? She didn’t even have an abortion. She was simply passing out pamphlets. So the idea that she was targeted made no sense with the “rules” the book set up. And honestly — I didn’t want the plot to hinge on abortion at all. It felt heavy-handed, strangely timed politically, and completely disconnected from the heart of what the book was doing so beautifully up until that point.
By the time I reached page 580ish, I was mostly muttering, “Wait, what? Why are we doing this?”
So… Do I Recommend It?
Surprisingly, yes — with caveats.
The writing is gorgeous. The characters are unforgettable. The pacing (for most of the book) is addictive. And the Missouri love? Deeply appreciated. 🌾✨ But the ending? A full collapse, in my opinion. It left me with more questions than answers and pulled the story into a direction that didn’t match the tone or emotional center of the first 500 pages. I ended up giving it 3 to 4 stars — high for the writing, low for the last act.
Final Thoughts
Even with my frustration, I’m glad I read it. And I’m glad I read it during this season of life, nursing a baby, tucked into tiny pockets of quiet in an otherwise chaotic house. Some books stay with you because they’re perfect; others because they were companions during a moment you’ll remember forever.