Review by sophievansickle - Dark Room Etiquette

sophievansickle 's review for:

Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe

5.0

dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A thoughtful but haunting YA story about trauma and its aftermath. I don't typically enjoy thrillers but this was a quiet character-driven thriller heavily focused on the main character's journey through a traumatic event and how his life is affected after, rather than a story driven by action and plot, and I think this book is better for it. I read Robin Roe's debut shortly after its release and it stuck with me for a long time. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about the resolution, and kind of wished

it had involved clinical therapy and had more resolution with Luke beyond seeing the text messages, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's important to reflect the reality that recovery from trauma is going to be messy and people won't get professional help on the timeline we think they should and people should be allowed to make their own choices on how to move forward because actually it's none of our business

Regardless, I am so pleased that she has delivered with another masterpiece of a story on the topic of trauma and resiliency and if she wasn't already an auto-buy author, she sure is now.

Content Warnings