Ask the Dark - Henry Turner - 3 stars

I received this book through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. This is a debut novel of the author and I was a little hesitant about that at first. This is a mystery and also classed as YA, but I am not sure as to why it would be YA because the language used in this books was pretty bad.

In this book we have a boy named Billy Zeets who has been less than perfect in the eyes of those in the community. Billy does not have a clean record, he has been know for stealing and trashing the community he lives in. He does make a promise to do better and not revert to the life he once lived. That was before he stumbles upon a crime and he makes it his mission to solve the crime in his small town.

I was a bit confused by this book being classed as a YA since it read more like an adult book. I say that mostly because of the language. Normally bad language does not bother me but in this book the language at times was a bit over the top for me with all of the cursing and it put me off a little bit from really enjoying the story. I love a good mystery, but I don't feel like I got that with this book since you know at the beginning of the story pretty much what is going to happen. The only mystery was really figuring out who did and I have to say it was pretty predictable and not really a surprise. I felt like that hurt the story a lot. Despite my issues with the story I found it was an engaging, fun read simply because we have an unlikely hero as the protagonist of the story.

I did find that Billy grew on me despite his use of a few choice words constantly throughout the story. I think he was developed ok, but I think a bit more backstory would have really benefitted the story a lot. I did not really find much connection with any of the other characters in the book. I thought the speech/accent of our protagonist was written very well and gave him more character.

I really cant class this book as a YA mystery and I don't think people should go into it thinking it is. There is some mystery to the story, but it is very much an adult book IMO. If you like a mystery but more on the fun side rather than serious, then you may like this book. I was on the fence about what I wanted to rate this book since I had some issues with it. I decided that since it was pretty engaging and fun I would rate it a 3 star. I think that is pretty generous.