Review: Dark Eyes

Dark Eyes
by William Richter
Published: March 15, 2012 by Razorbill

Get ready for the vigilante girl detective of the next generation.

Wally was adopted from a Russian orphanage as a child and grew up in a wealthy New York City family. At fifteen, her obsessive need to rebel led her to life on the streets.

Now the sixteen-year-old is beautiful and hardened, and she's just stumbled across the possibility of discovering who she really is. She’ll stop at nothing to find her birth mother before Klesko—her dark eyed father—finds her. Because Klesko will stop at nothing to reclaim the fortune Wally’s mother stole from him long ago. Even if that means murdering his own blood. But Wallys had her own killer training, and she's hungry for justice.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for teens, this debut thriller introduces our next big series heroine!

(Goodreads)

I will start by saying that yes, I really enjoyed this book, but it confused me at some points.  Oh, and I vow to never look ahead in a book again.  If you look ahead in this book (a.k.a last 100 pages), you will ruin the story.

Moving on.  Wally is a tough girl who doesn't let much of her feelings show.  She is the leader of her little gang, and once lived a life everyone would want.  The reason why she abandons that is because she isn't comfortable with her life--that's what I got from it, at least.  What really nags me is the thing about her mom, which I can't really talk about 'cause that'd ruin the whole book.  Let's just say that I didn't understand everything about her mother's reasonings.

The story does flow a lot like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (I know I'm horrible for basing my views on the movie) in that it switches from different important characters.

Richter did a good job at keeping the reader guessing--even down to the point that, after I formed a question, it was answered within pages.  I found that rather cool.  As for the writing, it wasn't too spectacular.  It fit well for the story, though, but it didn't really wow me.

For a lot of the plot, I didn't completely understand why stuff was happening, but I think those were the instances where my question was answered after a few pages.  And the pace wasn't too slow.  I guess you can say I devoured the book in about a week, I think.

I will definitely be getting the next book.  I can't wait to see what will happen with Wally now that so many things have happened.

Overall, I'd say this would be 4 stars.