Sidekick Super Review: Darkly by Marisha Pessl (2025)

Cover image of  Darkly by Marisha Pessl. Published by Delacorte Press, 2024.

The Basics

Page Length: 416

Audiobook Length: ~11 hours

Grade Level: 7+

Common Sense Media Score: 13+

Goodreads Score: 3.7/5

Buy it HERE

Setting: Present Day, Darkly Island, off the coast of England

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Topics: Gaming, Conspiracies, Puzzles, Family secrets

Plot: Seventeen-year-old Arcadia Ganon lives in a small Missouri town collecting dust—literally. She runs her family's antique shop, spending her days surrounded by relics of the past. Her closest friends are the elderly folks who help out at the store, and while she totally vibes with the vintage clothes and old-school music, Dia is bored. She's waiting for her life to start.

Craving adventure, she applies for a coveted internship with Darkly Games—a mysterious board game empire with a dangerous reputation. Some say their games have had... unusual consequences. Then there’s the company’s founder, Louisiana Veda, whose death was suspicious and whose legacy is even stranger. Everything about Darkly is shrouded in secrecy.

To Dia’s shock, she’s selected—along with six other "lucky" teens—to spend the summer at Darkly’s remote headquarters. But the internship isn’t what they expected. They are dropped off on a creepy, secluded island complete with a condemned island and a haunted house. And their first assignment? Track down a missing person rumored to have been playing a stolen, unreleased Darkly game.

As the teens dig deeper, it becomes clear there’s way more to the story than just a missing boy and a stolen prototype. Something is very wrong at Darkly, and Dia will have to lead the group to unravel the truth—and survive the most dangerous summer internship ever.

Themes: Biological family vs. found family, reality vs. illusion, surveillance and power, the cost of fame and genius, trauma and memory, legacies left behind

You might like this book if you like:

• Escape rooms, puzzles, gaming

• The Mysterious Benedict Society. This book feels like an older, spookier version to me. (P.S. This book series has recently been adapted into a TV show)

• Shows like Severance (Apple TV+),1899 (Netflix), The Wilds (Amazon Prime)

• Movies like Inception, Ready Player One, The Game, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

• Dark, eerie, gothic vibes. Perfect for a fall/Halloween read!

  
  

Other books written by this author: Night Film, Neverland Wake

Teaching Darkly As a Full-Class Unit

Content

• Language: some mild use

• Sex: a few kissing scenes

• Violence/Scariness: Throughout the book, characters are kidnapped, shot at, and chased. While playing the game, they are tormented by scary masked figures, a witch, and other spooky villains.

• Drinking/Smoking/Drugs: a few scenes in bars, mention of alcoholic/drug addicted parents

Class Novel-ability: Because of its spooky elements, I’m not sure this would be a good pick for the whole class. It might be a little too intense for some students. This is probably more of a “for fun” type of read, but it has been my favorite book of the year so far.

The Star Qualities

1. There are pictures of clues sprinkled throughout the book. Letters, newspaper clippings, blueprints, invitations, maps, you name it. They are totally separate from the narration of the story, and at first glance, have seemingly nothing to do with the chapters they are sandwiched in between. UNTIL, you reach the end of the book and figure out what the pieces of evidence lead to. Then going back to look at all of them is a real treat! Trying to

   piece them together when you read is mind-bending, and then Finally it all makes sense. It's a super cool feature of the book.

2. The mystery is thrilling, shocking, and mind-bending. Every new clue the characters uncover surprised me. I found myself desperately trying to piece it all together as I read, but I couldn't. For real, this is the most complex and interesting story I've read in forever! The end resolved all my questions, but the twist on the last page leaves the reader with a mouth hanging open! And dying for a sequel.

3. Such a rich setting—and even richer characters! The atmosphere is tailor-made for storytelling: a dark, eerie island, a haunted house with an invisible tenant, a sprawling English manor where a child went missing, a condemned factory laced with secret tunnels, and a spooky small town full of even spookier residents. And the characters? Just as compelling. Each one is more intriguing than the last, adding depth and tension to every scene. It’s a vivid, layered world brimming with mystery and unforgettable personalities.

4. This author is a wordsmith. As an English teacher, I was constantly taking note of her writing. There are TONS of passages and sentences you could use to teach writing lessons. Her sentences are beautifully crafted and complex. This would definitely be a book to turn to for advanced writing or creative writing students. It's just got seriously impressive language.

5. This book is getting a sequel and possibly a TV show. The author confirmed on her Instagram that another book is on the way, although there's no official release date yet. And there are rumors that a TV show adaptation is coming--and the executive producer will be Jamie Lee Curtis herself! WHAT?!

Book Talk Read Aloud Section

*What is a book talk? (Watch a how to video here. Read my blog post here)

If you have the physical book, read chapter 1 (pages 1-8).

If you don't, read pages1-8 in the kindle reading sample here.

"Reading Like a Writer" Mentor Texts

*What is a Reading Like a Writer? (Watch a how to video here. Read my blog post here)

1. This passage is packed with great stuff—clear paragraph breaks, em dashes for emphasis, vivid imagery, personification, and short punchy sentences that really build tension. It’s a solid example to use in class.

Darkly, p. 65

2. I like the way this one builds suspense with purposeful paragraph breaks, impactful one-word sentences, engaging questions, and internal dialogue in italics that reveals the character’s thoughts.

Darkly, p. 333

3. I love how this passage models character description. It would make a great mentor text for students to use when writing to describe themselves, or perhaps when describing a character from a class novel. Bonus: this passage is included in the book talk read-aloud section. So your students will have heard it once already.

Darkly, p. 3

Sentences for Combining and Imitation

*What is sentence combination and imitation? (Watch my how to video here. Read my blog post here.)

Sentence sets for combining:

"I run up the stairs, one flight, then another, blasting out into the darkened hallway." (Darkly, p. 292)

• I run up the stairs

• I run up one flight

• I run up another.

• I blast out into the hallway.

• The hallway is dark.

"I am screaming, tumbling down the pitched roof, unable to stop my momentum as I fly over the edge." (p. 367)

• I am screaming.

• I am tumbling down the pitched roof.

• I am unable to stop my momentum.

• I fly over the edge.

  
  

"I'm alone in an alcove--dim fluorescent light, cracked orange tiles, a green door." (p.178)

• I am alone.

• I am in an alcove.

• It has light.

• The light is dim.

• The light is fluorescent.

• There are cracked tiles.

• The tiles are orange.

• There is a door.

• The door is green.

"I slip through the portrait gallery into the library, shivering because I'm drenched and it's freezing in here, much colder than before." (p. 316)

• I slip through the portrait gallery.

• I go into the library.

• I am shivering.

• I am drenched.

• It is freezing in here.

• It is much colder than before.

"I take a deep breath to steady my mind, prepare myself, tell myself again that all I have to do is make it beyond the boundaries of the game and run, run, run for my life." (p.133)

• I take a deep breath.

• I steady my mind.

• I prepare myself.

• I tell myself again that all I have to do is make it beyond the boundaries of the game.

• Then I have to run.

• I have to run for my life.

Sentences for Imitation:

"I'm pretty sure what all of this means is that I, Dia Gannon, aka Nana, of Eminence, Missouri, with a GPA of 2.7 on a good day and nothing to recommend me except an embarrassing knowledge of 1930s put-downs, have a better change of getting admitted to Harvard, Stanford, and Yale as lightning strikes me while winning the Powerball lottery as the #1 USTA Junior Tennis Seed than I do of winning this internship." (p. 4)

I know this one is SUPER long, but it's just one sentence, and it's got excellent tone and voice. I also think it's a sentence a lot of high school students would relate to. This would be a fun one for them to imitate!

"I sense he is thinking the same thing I am: one of us is a liar." (p. 328)

This one is short, powerful, and dramatic. Students can imitate the use of colons and internal dialogue.

"The winding paths and gnarled trees and sculptures drowning in the overgrown grasses, the dry fountains and sagging roofs, the crumbling walls--it's probably my exhaustion and the meeting with Raiden, but the island seems to have sunk even deeper into the ground." (p. 308)

This one has beautiful imagery. The description is so vivid! It's a perfect example for your students to look to to practice writing while appealing to the senses.

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Used this book in your classroom? Tell us how in the comments!

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