Written by Skottie Young
Art by Jorge Corona and Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Published by Image Comics
When my sons were in High School, their principal told me that his most significant concern for the youth in his care was not drugs, violence, or even bad grades in his years as an educator. His primary concern was children getting caught up in toxic love affairs.
Why? Because he found children incapable of dealing with all of the complicated emotions of love. Most notably, children that get caught up in toxic love affairs.
As someone that has lived and loved various women in my life, that shit is tough. The Bible says, “Marriage is tribulation in the flesh.” A quote from The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones says, “To love is to destroy and that to be loved is to be destroyed.”
Skottie Young’s The Me You Love in the Dark talks about all those fascinating aspects of love and combines them into a beatiful haunting tale of love found and love lost. When an artist named Ro retreats from the rat race of the city to find her muse in a small town, she gets more than she bargained for in the form of an unnamed entity that resides in the house.
The Me You Love in Dark starts like a New Age The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. However, unlike the benevolent spirit in that film, it quickly becomes apparent that Ro’s supernatural suitor may not have the best of intentions.
Young deftly crafts a story that makes you understand how Ro could fall in love with a supernatural being, wholly charmed and unaware of the growing toxicity in their burgeoning love affair. Readers will be captivated as Ro falls deeply in love with her suitor before realizing that she is instead his prisoner.
The book is a beautiful and haunting masterpiece, thanks to art provided by Jorge Corona and Jean-Francois Beaulieu. Darkness plays an intrinsic part of the story, and Corona and Beaulieu go to great lengths to capture the stark distinction between darkness and light.
Later in the story, when Ro uses the light as a weapon, I almost winced in pain at the sudden and jarring transition. My only complaint is the story comes to a premature end, and while it ends neatly, I had so many lingering questions about the true nature of the spirit and even Ro herself.
The Me You Love in the Dark is an excellent piece to read on a dark and stormy night with a glass of your favorite spirit in tow.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
