Deep and Dark and Dangerous Book

"The lake's deep...and dark...and dangerous."

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I originally rated this three stars but after rowing it over in my mind I had to drop this one down to one star. There was some very problematic issues with the characters and there was one sentence in the book that made my mouth drop, due to racism.

Deep and Dark and Dangerous is about a young girl who is 13 who goes to stay with her aunt and her little cousin for the summer at a family summer home. Her aunt and her siblings haven't been to the house since they were little and they avoid all questions about why they won't go to the house. As soon as they arrive at the summer home another young girl named Sissy starts turning up out of nowhere and wanting to play. This puts the girls in numerous awkward or dangerous situations, not to mention their moods change when they are around her.

Ok, I might as well address the elephant in the room right away. Was this book racist? Well, I wouldn't go as far as to say it was a racist book but I would say there was a very good example of casual racism within it. At one point the girls are playing on the beach and Sissy comes up behind them, the girls remark how they did not hear her coming. Her response is and I quote, "I sneaked up on you, I'm as quiet as an Indian." (It was on page 76 in my edition, incase you want to look at it for yourself.)

Now let's get into why this is so problematic. Obviously the comment in itself is pretty racist, referring to the idea that Indians are sneaky. Next, there is NO reason for the comment. This is probably the biggest issue about this. The character is not racist, there is no signs, other than that one throw-a-way comment that they are racist. There is nothing about race in the book and it had nothing to do with anything that was going on. Do I think the author was racist? I really can't answer that question because I haven't read enough of her work and in the other book I read I didn't particularly notice anything. When I first read the sentence that I'm referring to, I kind of slowly stopped and thought, "there is no way I just read that." So, I read it over a few times, looked for some way that I could explain away the racism then I shrugged and figured that this must be a book of its era. I guessed this book to be written maybe in the 50s-70s at the latest. It read like an older book and the cover suggested it as well, so I checked the year. Wrong again, it was published in 2007 *bangs head on desk* How it got past the editors I'll never know. There is just no excuse in the year 2007 to have such stereotypical racism in a book. I personally would have an issue allowing children I know to read this without proper context. It is normalizing racism. Not a good thing in my book. I know some people may roll their eyes at the amount of content I'm writing on this, but I think it's important that we talk about these things when we see them.

Another huge issue with this book is the characters. None of them are particularly likeable. The protagonist isn't awful but there's nothing special about her, the little girl she babysits for is one of the most annoying children I have read about in a long time and Sissy (the mysterious girl) is just a complete monster of a character, not in a good way. The adults are harsh, and when they have their more tender moments it's still hard not to think of them as complete batshit crazy morons. I just couldn't get on board with any of them.

Is there anything really positive about this book? I thought I liked it at first but I realized I liked the feeling of it. It felt like an older story and it gave me a cozy feeling. I was letting a lot of things slide because of that.

I did read Mary Downing Hahn' more known book Wait Till Helen Comes and enjoyed it much more. I will read more of her books and hope that I do not come into these issues again. I can't in my right mind recommend a book like this though.