A review by glyph
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

this book is insane. trying to explain this book to people has my brain wrapped up in itself to try and explain how amazing and yet how crazy this story is. to plan for a story like this, to have the mystery so expertly rolled out that you don't even see it coming in the first hundred pages  –  a feat in itself! it's definitely more dystopian than romcom, and i do wish that i would've known how much of a difference the story had from my expectations from the beginning. 

the only thing i wish that would've been a little different are some plot holes that don't really make sense:
like how they redirected the ship but yet there was the portal that led to the book and the tapes? i thought that was their own plan, not something that was there from the beginning? and what about the people who came before them? the logistics of it all stump me.


there's also the factor of characterization, but this is leveled out by the end of the book.
i really enjoyed how each iteration got to be their own people, by chaos or intervenience, bc it feels like a kind of step back from destiny / fate storylines, which i enjoyed. i had a hard time picturing w/ the dialogue that they were seventeen year olds, in my mind they were more late twenties with how they spoke and acted. but even still, we didn't have the time to connect to any particular set, because they changed so often. really the first part of the book is really all we get to see, and even then, it's all surface level with a few dips of emotional depth, but nothing that actually made me feel connected to them. maybe i was too enthralled by the mystery?


it was a ride, and one that i don't think i'll stop thinking about for a while, but it's strange and mysterious and devastating, with small soft moments that make it feel less cold than the space they live in.
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