I read The Darkness Outside Us and here's what I thought

 

So, today I’m talking about The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer. If I’m being honest, I feel like this was a book that might have turned up on my timeline, or radar, at some point before just completely dropping off, resulting in me forgetting about it. But then one lunch time, I went into a bookshop, and it was there, so I ended up stopping and being like, “Oh, yeah, that book!”

This post might also be a bit shorter than I normally do, but that’s because the majority of my notes were made on my phone when I was on the train lol. So, if what I’m saying seems a bit scattered, that may be why.

The old blurbs in space says that there are two boys, alone in space. Sworn enemies sent on the same rescue mission. Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor with no memory of a launch. There’s more that doesn’t add up: Evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed – not when he’s rescuing his own sister. In order to survive the ship’s secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust each other… especially once they discover what they are truly up against.

Chapter one sees Ambrose Cusk waking up on the ship, and we also get the information that he’s on a mission to rescue his sister, Minerva, and that the operating system on this ship has his mother’s voice. We get these things really quick. Like, I felt as though this book set itself up really quickly. Oh, also the ship is leaking oxygen lol. But then as he’s waking up from his fun little coma era, his personality sort of returns to him as well. When he first wakes up, he’s very much just trying to survive, but then he starts making snippy little comments. He also thinks that his sister was the only person who ever truly loved him. He’s also also not alone on the ship.

Oh, you want to know what’s wild. So, Ambrose and Minerva were surrogate babies, but they were made from their mother’s egg and the reconstructed sperm of Alexander the Great? Ma’am? I don’t even know if that’s scientifically possible. But it’s giving very much my universe my rules vibes, and you know what? I love that energy. And as a separate little point, I realise in the last paragraph I said that chapter one sees Ambrose. This book doesn’t specifically have chapters, but it does have six different parts that are broken up by chapters breaks which basically tell you how many more tasks Ambrose and Kodiak have left to do.

But Ambrose does end up meeting Kodiak Celius, and as a side point… these names. They sound very sci-fi, if that makes sense? They were very the vibes of the author was like, “Hmm, I want to write sci-fi, so I need to come up with some sci-fi-sounding names”. Still Ambrose and Kodiak meet, and it’s very much the case of Kodiak assumes that Ambrose industry planted his way onto the space mission they’re on – which was basically correct. And Kodiak, where he came from was very racers start your engines and may the best drag queen win vibes. Like homeboy fought his way onto the ship.

Anyway, then about 140 pages in, we get to a moment that just had me so confused. But when I say that, I mean that it was set up confusion, not confusion that the book wasn’t well written. Confusion that was meant to be there. Like, this book started off with me assuming it was going to be one thing, then this bit popped up and I was kind of gagged, I won’t lie. I’m not really sure how much I can say without spoiling something that’s pretty central to the book. Granted, this is something that gets revealed, I want to say, before the halfway point, but it’s still major to the plot where what I originally thought the book was going to be ends up changing at gets absolutely wild.

I can confidently say that this book was nothing like I assumed it was going to be. Like, I assumed it was just going to be gay romance in space, and I can happily report that while that was partially correct, there was so much more to the book than just gays in space, and I don’t know what I can say about it without spoiling the book. I want to say so much, but if I do, then I feel like I’ll spoil the twist. Or twists.

As for the ending, again, I’m not going to spoil anything, and I think I’m using an analogy I’ve probably used before, but the ending of this book felt like falling into a pool of water, but after falling for so long. I will say, the end was nice, if a little weird, but it did leave me with a couple of questions. Saying that, however, they weren’t the kind of questions that left me mad or frustrated or anything. It was more the kinds of questions I’d have just liked the answers to because I’m nosy, not because not having the answers made the ending bad, or worse.

I guess if I did have something to criticise, it would be that I did feel like the book started to go on a little longer than it needed to towards the ending. I understand why it ended how it did, and why it went on for the length that it did, but I just genuinely don’t think it needed to. You know what I think it was? I think because the book didn’t have typical chapters, the last bit of the book that I would have considered to have been the epilogue ended up blending into the rest of the book and story. So it was like you had this one vibe from the main bulk of the story, and then at the end it changes for what would be the epilogue. I think had there been that little separation, or break, I wouldn’t have felt this way.

One final thing, and this isn’t so much a comment on the book, it’s just a fact that I’m not the most perceptive reader. While I was reading it, at one point I had a moment where I thought, “I feel like I’m not seeing much in terms of setting”, and I just had to stop myself for a moment after thinking that. I was almost going to complain about that… I am so dumb. Ambrose and Kodiak are literally trapped on a spaceship, of course there’s not going to be much in terms of setting. Of course we’re not going to see a lot, that’s that point… and I nearly missed it. Not my finest moment, I can’t lie.

Okay, bye!