Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

63 reviews

temi403's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Death, Grief, and Sexual content

Minor: Chronic illness

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

pro_basil's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

oh. my. god. I can not explain how far the book goes beyond the synopsis. It becomes this different kind of story and it evoked so many emotions in me that may haunt me for a while. I loved this story, the last time I really enjoyed a book was years ago. This was so good it actually jump started my love for reading again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Suicide

Moderate: War, Homophobia, Murder, Sexual content, and Cancer

Minor: Gaslighting and Vomit

aardwyrm's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

For a book where most of what actually happens is relentlessly grim, a strangely gentle read. The whole thing is very tropey and none of the twists will likely actually surprise you, but the journey matters more than the destination. I have to say the emotional build-up early on feels a bit rushed, but then, our main characters are seventeen year old boys, so. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Suicide, Abandonment, Death, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Violence, Cancer, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Child death, Gaslighting, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Death of parent, Xenophobia, Homophobia, War, Sexual content, and Genocide

dododenise's review against another edition

challenging 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This was so much more than I ever expected. I’ve read before that the blurb is misleading, and yet this book blew my mind.
This is what I’ve been missing in the science fiction books I’d been reading lately. I’m so thankful for this book of reminding me why I love science fiction so much.
I knew there needed to come a plot twist, and when it came I was still completely baffled.
The romance was beautiful. And so interesting. Yet this definitely wasn’t a romance, but so much more. 
There are so many other things I could say, but I don’t want this to contain spoilers so I’ll shut my mouth. All I can say: Go read this book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Grief

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Vomit, and Cancer

Minor: Suicide, War, and Sexual content

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

lavender_lores's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

this book can fit so much book in it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Gaslighting

Moderate: Colonisation, Racism, Sexual content, and Xenophobia

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