Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

51 reviews

yoursupremereads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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? No

3.75

This was something I was not expecting. Gay teens in space? Dystopia? New planet hopping? Spaceship faring? Dark science fiction with sinister AIs? This gave me a run for my money. A great addition to the YA queer canon of literature for young people to consume. A story I wish was here when I was a youngling.

Ambrose and Kodiak's light enemies to lovers journey was honestly heart warming, especially given the fact that Schrefer makes it feel like these two boys are the only people in the entire universe, so interaction was inevitable. But their budding romance was handled in the best way possible. And the looming threat of the vacuum of space outside their spaceship was ever present and tense. And the twist, made my jaw drop. Just know clones are involved and it was mind blowing. But the best thing about the story is that Ambrose and Kodiak get a happy ending that was worth the trials and tribulations of their journey.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Medical content and Grief

Minor: War, Colonisation, and Classism

laesterlurch's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Suicide, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Body horror, Murder, Terminal illness, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Gaslighting, Genocide, War, and Medical content

taelights's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

I HATE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Vomit, Blood, Medical content, Cancer, Confinement, Death, Cursing, Gaslighting, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Homophobia, Biphobia, Death of parent, Fatphobia, and War

marjoleinvanderspoel's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

WTF was this book? I expected a sweet queer love story in space and got an existential crisis instead. Incredibly creepy and well thought out. I love books about the reality of space because it really highlights the fragility of human life. Another favourite theme of mine is the age old question of the human condition, and this was an incredibly ambitious take on that. Perhaps a little too ambitious, as I did feel there was a lack of depth in the characters and it was really the plot that made this story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders and Confinement

Minor: Violence

paracosim's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

I hadn’t expected to cry so hard at the end of this book but I was sobbing for a good 10 minutes after. I think I’ll be coming back to this one again and again as the years go by.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Violence, and Confinement

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, and Mental illness

Minor: Vomit and War

feralgoblin's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful 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? No

5.0

I was recommended this book by my sibling, saying that it was a psychological thriller with space himbo’s. So I expected to find a quirky mystery with a cute romance. 

What I was not prepared for was a cleverly written, deeply emotional and often times philosophical story about two boys falling in love that had me a little teary-eyed by the end. Kodiak and Ambrose are both such well written characters- they’re both dorks who bounce between being so smart and being straight doofuses. I loved them from the moment I met them. And while I had a few gut instincts that turned out to be correct on a few of the twists, I was still left confused and surprised when others were revealed. 

I’ve read plenty of books, watched plenty of movies and documentaries- but The Darkness Outside Us has been the first book I’ve read thats really made me ponder what it means to be human and just how powerful love can be in an unforgiving and inescapable place such as outer space. 

This was probably one of my favorite things I’ve ready this year and I eagerly look forward to reading it again in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Murder, and Suicide

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Vomit

Minor: Sexual content, Cancer, and Confinement

Ambrose and Kodiak have sex a few times but it’s always a fade to black sort of situation. And it never explicitly says ‘so-and-so’ has cancer but it is mentioned that someone has a malignant tumor

cryptidkay's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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? No

4.5

 I'll admit that I picked this up for the space gays. I love me some space gays. But this book came right out of sci-fi left field and dragged me along with it.

The author plays amazingly well with traditionally terrifying sci-fi tropes but at the same time including two characters who blossom and grow near and dear to a reader's heart (AND each other's). Doing such with only two characters (and the OS? I guess?) is amazing. There's no where for a reader to turn if they don't particularly like the main characters. No background folks to turn to (Rover? After what it's done? Eugh. No.). And that ENDING! Damn do I love a well-deserved happy ending 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Death, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, Classism, Colonisation, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness

reader_in_the_meadow's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

The Darkness Outside Us is a 2021 Young Adult Science-Fiction novel by american author Elliot Schrefer. It is parted into six part and is written continuously with no marked chapters. Told is the story of Ambrose Cusk and Kodiak Celius, two spacefarers whose mission to rescue Ambrose's sister takes a dark turn when they discover secrets on their ship.

The plot of this book was all over the place, but in a good way. It was such a well worked out idea that was told in an easy to follow way, so you couldn't miss a thing. Since I don't want to spoil here I am just honna say that the plot twist came right out of nowhere which was such a surprise. And I love when that happens! However, there were some parts where only info dumping was done, but at least they were pretty short.

Since there are only two acting characters in this book there is not much to say about diversity, besides that both of them are non-heterosexual young men. But the tricky thing Schrefer had to do was make both of these characters a whole own personality each so they really stand out. And oh boy, how he did that! They were both very well worked out and their dynamic was so good!

The writing in this book was not that hard to read which makes it easy to concentrate on the story. However it was a bit hard for me to understand some of the more scientific terms, since I did know many of them. The way the story is told is through the eyes of Ambrose, who acts as the main character in this story. I was able to completely immerse myself in the atory and the atmosphere that was built up while reading.

I really liked the dystopian idea, of the cold war not ending and instead accumulating two big countries on earth. It gave the whole story a kind of intense background and so much interesting story points.

However, I found the characters at some points very annoying and just stopped reading because I could not understand them at these times.

To sum up, The Darkness Outside Us is a very great Science-Fiction book with a thrillerish turn woven into it that I can only revommend. Still, please take note of the content warnings before buying.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Death, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Sexual content

Moderate: Cancer, Excrement, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Minor: War

spinesinaline's review against another edition

dark funny 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, and Confinement

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: War

wildflower_sarah's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Minor: Cancer, Death, Murder, Terminal illness, and Vomit