Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

59 reviews

lavagirl's review

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I like how unhinged this book gets halfway thru it's way bigger than it seems

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Blood, Cancer, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content and Vomit

adrianas65's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Grief, Suicide, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Gaslighting, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual content, Medical trauma, and Vomit

coffeebean216's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Suicide, Violence, Death, Vomit, Confinement, Gore, and Blood

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Fatphobia, Sexism, Misogyny, Sexual content, Classism, Cancer, Cursing, Homophobia, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcohol

perhappiness's review

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Blood, Violence, Vomit, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Classism, Cancer, Sexual content, Confinement, War, Suicidal thoughts, and Xenophobia

mdiffer's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

A classic sci-fi tale and tropes--retold with some modern twists and representation.
What really kept me reading (engrossed) was the drama between the three main characters. That sweet, sweet drama. The writing was competent and the pacing felt appropriate. Characters were believable and felt real.
The plot of the book is standard sci-fi fare. It was easy predict the "big reveal" before the end of part 1, but that didn't stop me. It was a well-told story and a fun read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Mental illness and Violence

Minor: Sexual content

ghostlyprince's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Cancer, Child death, Death, Gaslighting, Terminal illness, and Vomit

Moderate: Abandonment, Bullying, Medical content, War, Sexual content, Suicide, Murder, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Grief, Addiction, Excrement, and Blood

avacadosocks's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Murder, Sexual content, Cancer, Confinement, Medical content, Body horror, and Terminal illness

Minor: War, Gore, Suicide, and Vomit

evelynyle_88's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, and Cancer

Minor: War and Suicide

leguinstan's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

The Darkness Outside Us is a lackluster romance novel... but it's an AMAZING thriller!!

The main character and his love interest are incredibly flat-- outside of a basic personality profile and general background info, I barely got to know anything about Ambrose and Kodiak which made the romance between the two of them stale as all hell. I literally have no idea what Kodiak likes to do for fun and I struggle to picture what he and Ambrose would do together if they weren't stuck in their current predicament.

Luckily, said predicament is a popcorn-munching, edge-of-your-seat affair and once I hit the first big plot twist I stayed glued to my seat until I reached the very last page. While the twist wasn't a complete surprise to me since I watched a sci-fi film years ago

(Moon)

with the same exact plot twist, The Darkness Outside Us took said twist in a different direction and drastically raised the stakes. The way the two characters react to the revelations and handle their situation is utterly compelling.

The thing is though--I think The Darkness Outside Us would have been an even stronger novel if it was written for adults instead of teens. To be clear, I'm not saying that it's an adult novel mismarketed for a teen audience. I'm saying that writing the story for teens prevents it from reaching its full potential. Because of the teen readership, the main characters' feelings about the more harrowing experiences in the story could not be explored in more depth. No disrespect intended at all to YA novels! I just feel in this particular instance the YA label on this story feels too limiting. 

Long story short: while I have some serious complaints against the novel, I enjoyed the thriller aspects too damn much to give it less than a 3.5.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Mental illness, Sexual content, Blood, and Violence

Minor: Homophobia and War

sexual content: the main character of the story is a VERY HORNY teenager and does end up having sex with the teen love interest several times. It's not explicit but it's not subtle either. homophobia: soooo the main character accuses the love interest of being homophobic but uh... he's only homophobic by the main character's futuristic standards. So it barely feels like homophobia to me.

karin_goodreads's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense

5.0

This was truly a science fiction. I thought it's going to be all romance, but no. I didn't expect to love the science 🛰🧑🏼‍🚀 and space stuff ✨🪐 so much, this has been a mind-bending experience. I just can't get over the plot, it's a mindfuck - I just LOVE it! I have this weird feeling like I have read this story before or I have memories of it, but I'm certain that I have never read this book before. This makes the book pretty memorable to me. Plus, it weirdly connects me to the story.

Ambrose & Kodiak had their adorable moments and their love is something different ❤️ I can't imagine what they felt like when they realized what was actually happening to them. All they truly had was each other. I'm kind of speechless and my brain is fried :P

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Sexual content and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicide