It Looks Like You in the Dark by Mathilda Zeller is a powerful Indigenous horror debut that combines Alaskan Native folklore, supernatural terror, and a story of colonial exploitation into a novel that grabbed me from the opening pages and never let go.
Sometimes a novel about a character who has just graduated from high school can feel like it is trying very hard to speak to a young adult audience, even when the book itself is technically being marketed as adult fiction. It Looks Like You in the Dark never falls into that trap. Tapeesa is young, but the novel does not treat her—or its readers—as though either needs to be talked down to. The writing has a maturity that I appreciated immediately, and Tapeesa herself feels like a young woman standing on the threshold of adulthood rather than a YA protagonist who happens to be nineteen. That distinction makes a huge difference, particularly in a story dealing with generational trauma, colonialism, exploitation, family secrets, and the complicated choices people make when survival is involved.
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