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A review by justinkhchen
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer
5.0
5 stars
Manages to convey a sense of intimacy and grandeur simultaneously, The Darkness Outside Us excels at conveying the claustrophobic loneliness, as well as the challenged attitude on romance by unforeseen circumstance. The narrative really turns up the sci-fi element around its halfway point, reeling in readers with its progressively dire scenarios and elevating stake, while still keeping the relationship aspect authentic with nuanced mundane details.
I can nitpick a few flaws here and there: the novel can benefit from some trimming (especially in the first half), and for me, the last section feels too idealistic, especially when throughout the journey getting there, the novel has been teetering the fine line between good fortune and hard sacrifice. Nevertheless, The Darkness Outside Us is a memorable, human centric space drama without losing the bigger vision — I was thoroughly moved by it, not dissimilar to when I turned the last page of The Giver by Lois Lowry.
Manages to convey a sense of intimacy and grandeur simultaneously, The Darkness Outside Us excels at conveying the claustrophobic loneliness, as well as the challenged attitude on romance by unforeseen circumstance. The narrative really turns up the sci-fi element around its halfway point, reeling in readers with its progressively dire scenarios and elevating stake, while still keeping the relationship aspect authentic with nuanced mundane details.
I can nitpick a few flaws here and there: the novel can benefit from some trimming (especially in the first half), and for me, the last section feels too idealistic, especially when throughout the journey getting there, the novel has been teetering the fine line between good fortune and hard sacrifice. Nevertheless, The Darkness Outside Us is a memorable, human centric space drama without losing the bigger vision — I was thoroughly moved by it, not dissimilar to when I turned the last page of The Giver by Lois Lowry.