“My life was small, but it was mine, and now it’s gone.” How to Make Friends with the Dark is a deep and touching novel about a girl who must learn how to make friends with the dark after her mother’s death. Written by Kathleen Glasgow, bestselling author of Girl in Pieces and author of You’d Be Home Now, Glasgow represents the grief and mourning Grace “Tiger” Tolliver has after the death of her mother. As Tiger is traded through foster homes, she feels as if she is a “girl-bug in a jar”, disconnected from the world. 

How to Make Friends with the Dark is from the perspective of Grace “Tiger” Tolliver. She lives a peaceful life with her mother in Mesa Luna, Arizona. For all of Mesa Luna, it’s a typical day. For Tiger, it’s even a typical day. Despite fighting her mother, Tiger doesn’t expect anything out of the ordinary. Until her friend, school-loving Kai Henderson, tells her the most awful three words anyone could say, “Your Mom. Dead.” And with that, Tiger must learn to battle the constant struggle of foster care homes, alcoholism, bullying by the Mean Girls-esce Lupe Hidalgo, and the “Grand Canyon sized hole” in Tiger’s heart. Though, there are some cons about this plot. The high school dramatics of high school crushes and dances, mean “plastic-y and glossed-up” girls, and the over the top need to post things on Instagram wasn’t very necessary. For a lot of people, myself included, if this’d been a larger part in the book I would’ve probably stopped reading. Other than that, the plot was good with little to no holes.

Tiger and her mother lived in a small home, with a Jellymobile and a shack in the backyard for washing clothes. It was hot in the summer but they made do with the little they had into a “well-oiled-good-looking-machine.” But, after the tragedy of Tiger’s mother’s death, it seems Tiger will never go back to this home. But, she does go back; with her third and final caretaker, a half-sister aged 20, dealing with alcoholism and an abusive ‘boyfriend.’ The love-hate relation between Tiger and Shanya, her half-sister, is a bit strange to me, because whilst neither girl likes one another, Shanya and Tiger both care and love each other. 

Along with this, Tiger’s best friend, Cake, seems to live a picturesque hippie lifestyle, with her mother, father, and uncle. While Cake can be supportive and kind, she can also seem to have an uncaring and somewhat rude side. Overall, Cake does seem as though she is a good character. 

And then, the Mean Girls-esce Lupe Hildiago. A perfect, plastic-y softball player who loves to bully Tiger. I genuinely like her character, but found she was too glossed and made into a villain. Along with this, you have typical, rude boys still stuck in the seventh grade. 

I adored the settings, it all seemed so beautiful and real. The imagery for the settings and Tiger’s emotions on them were also wonderful. The characters (Tiger herself included) were also interesting and had great character development, but (again) the high school dramas, boys stuck in middle school, and plastic-y girls were as annoying as it was stereotyped, and Tiger’s description of each character, especially in the beginning, was unnecessarily judgemental. 

In conclusion, this whole book portrayed grief in an accurate and interesting way. I think How to Make Friends with the Dark was also filled with interesting, unique characters, though each character could be problematic and very stereotyped, as stated earlier. I did enjoy the writing style, though it was much harsher than many books. With Glasgow’s style, it’s less poetic and more harsh and gritty, which I enjoyed up to a point, but in full honesty feel that books such as The Hunger Games and a few other books portrayed a writing style such as that a bit better. I really loved the settings, a home of Tiger’s caretakers had a beautiful home in the desert area. Even Tiger’s own home and the playground were lovely and descriptive. 

Glasgow described the grief and death of Tiger’s mom and how Tiger went through this loss very well, and the names of certain places and things were very clever. This book also had great character development, which I love to see.

Overall, I think this was a great book. I can’t necessarily say who I’d recommend too, I think it’s a great book for anyone who’s lost someone important, someone who is a young person or anyone just trying to find more books with less happier or more fantastical themes.