Reviews with content warning for Addiction - A Shot in the Dark

A Shot in the Dark was one of the best contemporary adult romances I've read in a long time. While I love a light, fluffy romance, this book was much more grounded and dealt with a lot of heavier topics which helped add so much depth to the story and characters. I found myself rooting for not only Ely and Wyatt to fall in love, but also for them to each have their own personal growth and learn to love themselves more as well. As someone who has dealt with addiction first hand as well as with family members, I feel like the author handled these topics with so much honesty, grace, and empathy. I really appreciated that and it made this story so hopeful.

I can’t wait to read more books by Victoria Lee. They really blew me away with this book and I know I’ll definitely be picking up more books by them in the future.

Thank you Dell, Ballantine Books, Random House, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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erinkellyreads's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I bought this book a while ago because the synopsis had me hooked, and I finally made time to read it during Trans Rights Readathon this week! This book was so beautiful - the ache of our main characters navigating the traumas of their life while trying to stay clean, the tension between them with the love, attraction, and acceptance they feel for each other, and the nuanced writing about art, tradition, religion, and making your own way - I had a lot of feelings while reading this! Wyatt and Ely reminded me so much of the people I love, and, often, myself, and I immediately rooted for them both from page one. This is not a fluffy romance, but a deep one (while still having many fun moments of flirtation). I recommend!

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bookish_in_bklyn's review

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is more fiction with a side of romance than totally romance-focused, but I really enjoyed the story!

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myceliamorel's review

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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katieryn's review

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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rnfortier's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was both an easy read and a hard one.
Ely and Wyatt’s relationship develops in a meaningful and sexy way. Their banter is hilarious and enviable.
It was hard for me to empathize with Ely and Wyatt, as someone who has a couple relatives who are addicts.
But I think it was an invaluable experience for me to get into the heads of these characters and Victoria Lee’s writing is a big part of that.

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wardenred's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This whole summer stretches out before me, long and full of minefields.

I feel like this is among the least romance-like romance novels I've ever read, even though all the beats are technically there and the leads do have interesting chemistry. But still, their romantic story feels like merely connective tissue for their respective character arcs, and those make the book as a whole really shine.

It took me a while to warm up to Eli and start truly enjoying her chapters. At first, she came off as sort of darkly self-absorbed in a way that I could understand and empathize with given her history, but she was a tad too unlikable to be compelling. It changed during that one scene when she encouraged and supported her roommate while also experiencing and acknowledging her jealousy over the opportunities her roommate was getting. That made for an interesting mix of emotions that instantly made her more relatable to me. I guess that's the key to my heart: the character can get away with anything as long as they do occasional nice things for others, even (or maybe especially) if they don't do it for conventionally/socially acceptably nice reasons, lol. With Wyatt, I was more intrigued from his earliest POV chapter, because he struck me as someone trying hard to be a good, moral person but hiding a fair bit of darkness underneath that facade, and I enjoyed what I saw as the story progressed.

While I didn't feel super invested into the romance, putting most of my focus into the individual arcs instead, I appreciated how the romance made those arcs intersect, each of them mirroring the other in interesting ways. On the surface, Eli and Wyatt had a lot in common as addicts in recovery who had to go no contact with their family. And then there are the aspects of their respective stories that are practically polar opposites in ways that become clearer and clearer as the story progresses. I really liked the build-up to certain reveals about their pasts, and the general theme of reconnecting with your past in order to keep moving toward the future.

There's a lot more to this book that really stuck with me: all the relatable thoughts about making art, vivid New York descriptions, Eli's relationship to her religion and being part of the Jewish community, great trans representation, prose that pulled me in, and so much more. While this wasn't the romance I was looking for when I picked up the book, I did enjoy what I got. Definitely recommending this to anyone looking for complex, flawed characters dealing with the consequences of their worst moments and building themselves and each other up, or for narratives about coming back home and facing all the ways you've changed.

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