A review by livlamentloathe
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Fascinating. I didn’t stop thinking about this while reading—it just moved to my subconscious and then came back anytime it was relevant again. Heavier than many of the other SciFi books I’ve read. When I got home, and before I turned off my car, I often had to just sit there, over-emotional, before pausing it to continue about my day/night. Especially in the final third of the book, I was struggling with a lot of the thoughts of Ambrose on his journey.

This also introduced many new concepts to me that I wish we had on our Earth in 2023.
Like the discussion of gender and homophobic and top/bottom dynamics.
There was also a paragraph where Ambrose considered “love” and his preconceived notions of what it is and is meant to be—this actually helped my autistic brain to better rationalize the differences between media-based interpretations of love and what I’ve genuinely experienced.

This book was raw and honest in a way I don’t often see in sci-fi. I mean, I’m biased as I don’t consume a ton of science fiction, but I find a lot of the tech and discussion to be pretentious and unnecessarily complex, but this was relatable and real and genuine. I really enjoyed following the relationship of Ambrose and Kodiak. And I’ll almost miss them.

Highly recommend to anyone who likes Sci-Fi and dislikes gender/sexuality binaries. To anyone who wants to better understand love and what it means to be human.
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