Darkness Before Dawn (2001)
Darkness Before Dawn is a 2001 juvenile fiction book written by Sharon M. Draper.
Keisha Montgomery has already buried too much grief. An eighteen-year-old senior class president in Sharon Draper's Hazelwood High trilogy, she is still reeling from the suicide of her ex-boyfriend when she catches the eye of Jonathan Hathaway, a twenty-three-year-old track coach whose attention feels like rescue. Draper writes for teenagers without flinching, tracing how loneliness and flattery can blur a young woman's sense of danger. The closing volume of the trilogy, it treats its subjects, depression, consent, and self-worth, with plainspoken honesty rather than melodrama, and trusts its readers to sit with hard feelings.
Similar books
A few thoughts on Darkness Before Dawn
Sharon M. Draper's clear-eyed teen realism sits beside Laurie Halse Anderson's novel Speak, another unflinching story of a young woman finding her voice, and the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which handles grief and first love with similar tenderness. Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give continues the tradition of honest Black YA fiction.
