Jeyn Roberts

Dark Inside was one of my worst nightmares come to life. It was recommended to me by a friend, who knows I don’t like post apocalyptic type books. She said it was a must read, so I thought why not, I will only have nightmares for weeks. The reason this book scared me was not because it’s a horror or thriller, but the actual thoughts it puts in your head if a situation like this really happened. How would I react? Would I be brave or would I be a coward? Would the darkness consume me? The show more thing is you wouldn’t really know how you would react unless it was happening.

Dark Inside is about a world were madness has broken out. Natural disasters of major earth quakes and people doing terrorist like acts. The people enveloped in the darkness going mad and doing brutal things, even to people they love. It was just pure mayhem and chaos. This book reminded me of the movie Crazies, just way better because there wasn’t a true reason for why things were happening. I like that the darkness isn’t really blamed on one thing. They bring up multiple questions and factors of why it was happening. My thoughts are in a way the book was telling us we brought it on ourselves.
We follow four perspectives in this book, five if you consider nothing.

Mason, oh poor mason. I felt bad for him. It seemed like his life was already crumbling apart and the darkness just made it worse. It is like that saying, “It can’t get any worse” and it just keeps going downhill for him. I feel like there were times he just wanted to give up, but his strength was amazing. He hung on by the nails and kept going. Some of the secondary characters we meet with him are twiggy and chickadee. I loved chickadee and I really wanted more for her and Mason, but the world they are living in can have a cruel twist for fate. Aries was probably my favorite character. You could tell she was scared shitless and yet still managed to lead a group and try to keep them alive. I feel like her story besides Mason had more depth. There was more involvement with other characters and the plot was more realistic for me. I don’t know how she dealt with Colin and I guess that makes her a better person because I would have left him in the beginning of the book. Colin just reeks of bad news. She is a fighter and I love that about her. The only thing I didn’t like about her was she followed the advice of a stranger, though it kept her alive it didn’t seem real. Though if Daniel was the stranger giving me advice I would have probably done the same. Who doesn’t like a dark and mysterious guy that knows how to save the day, literally?

Then there was Clementine. She reminded me of the typical all American girl. She left her hometown and went on a blind hunt for her brother. I liked the moments when she would “speak” to her brother and I think those little thoughts helped her. She was constantly scared and you could feel her fear come through the pages. You see her fight hard with baggers and run for her life to find her brother. She barely slept for the fear of something happening. I don’t want to say she was in denial, but I think a false hope kept her moving forward. Michael was the person I related with the least. He seemed like a strong character at first, but he became weak for me. I feel like you could have almost taken him out of the book and it still would have been an amazing book. The only thing I really liked about him is that he gives comfort to Clementine. I also liked that he brought in the term “baggers”, which is what they called the people that have been drawn to the darkness.

Nothing, who are you? I feel like I might know, but I don’t want to spoil it. Hopefully we will get to officially meet you in the next book.

Dark inside made me laugh, cry and get completely frustrated. It makes you constantly question everything. The writing was vivid and detailed. The scenes came to life on the page. You could smell the smoke and the rotting bodies. You could feel the sand squish between your toes and the rain chill your bones. Every emotion a character felt, you were right there with them feeling it too. Dark inside kept me up till early in the morning to finish and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Thank you Jeyn Roberts for writing an amazing book and giving me terrifying nightmares for days. I enjoyed everything about this book and I think I am officially a fan of books making the world come to its end. (Even if they will forever scare me.) show less

Set in an indeterminate city in an undefined time, The Bodies We Wear is the story of Faye. A victim of a horrible crime, Faye is still suffering the consequences. For, in Faye’s world, taking the drug Heam is more heinous than anything else one can do. It might be the drug that allows people to see heaven, but the reality of its aftereffects are nothing short of hell on earth – something Faye experiences firsthand.

Marked forever as a Heam abuser, Faye must conquer unimaginable show more prejudice. The one normal thing about her life is high school, but even then the rules that allow her to attend require her to isolate herself from her peers. The only saving grace in her life is her guardian Gazer and the mysterious Chael. Bent on revenge against those who ruined her life, both Gazer and Chael try to show her that revenge is not the answer. Faye’s life does not spiral out of control, but her path is on a collision course with fate. It is her journey towards the culmination of her desires that readers get to experience. Some will condemn her, others will support her. All readers will have an opinion on Faye’s actions, desires, and ultimate solution.

While the story itself may be a tad predictable, there are certain elements which allow readers to overlook that issue. For one, the drug Heam is intriguing. The science behind it is nonexistent, but its backstory is fully developed and integrated into the storyline. For one drug to cause so much furor, especially when drug use has always been rampant, is an unusual idea and leads to questions Ms. Roberts tries to answer but her answers only lead to more questions. Then, there is the faith issue at the heart of Heam. Again, there are no good answers, only many questions, but the lack of answers ultimately forces readers to decide for themselves.

Prejudice, love, redemption, and faith are the main tenets of The Bodies We Wear. There is a romance to it, which is poignant and beautiful, but it is Faye’s history and how she has handled that to date that really makes a reader stop and ponder some of the discussions within the novel. Faye is tough and is not afraid to tell it like it is; however, her sense of fatalism, while understandable, tends to wear on a reader’s patience. The story’s rapid pacing towards the end is unsatisfying even though anything else would feel too drawn-out and unnecessary. It is a story that leaves a reader hopeful but with an unsettled understanding that the world is not the greatest of places. The Bodies We Wear is not a book readers will love and about which will gush profusely. Rather, it is the type of novel that readers will enjoy and move on to the next book, only to find one dwelling on certain elements of the story at a much later date. Some books do take time to marinate within a reader’s mind, and Jeyn Roberts’ latest is just one example. show less

I am trying so hard to like this series. [b:Dark Inside|10841167|Dark Inside (Dark Inside, #1)|Jeyn Roberts|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333198002s/10841167.jpg|13996404] was three stars for me and I'm also giving this three stars even though it is a better book than the first. The way I feel about Roberts' series is similar to how I feel about Revis' [b:Across the Universe|8235178|Across the Universe (Across the Universe, #1)|Beth show more Revis|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1348085121s/8235178.jpg|13082532] series. I like them well enough to be curious about what happens next, enough to search out the next book and hope I will like it more than I did the last one... but I do not care one teeny tiny bit for the characters. Where Revis' characters lack personality, Roberts' are too many.

It is rare to find a situation where five perspectives (four main ones) works and I do not think this is one of them. Even towards the end I was still getting mixed up between Mason and Michael - which I initially put down to them having the same first letter in their names - but then even Aries and Clementine. Names aside, I find them uninteresting and recognisable only by facts such as "she's the one trying to find her brother". It's a good job their names are written at the beginning of every chapter and that it's written in third person because it would be impossible to work out who was who from their "voices".

Though, like I said, [b:Rage Within|13185168|Rage Within (Dark Inside, #2)|Jeyn Roberts|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1324762057s/13185168.jpg|18365828] is better than book one, largely because the four protagonists face bigger moral dilemmas and they are allowed to make crucial and shocking mistakes that get people killed. I'm weird, I know, but I like that things are not all nice and there are no "heroes" in this story. Also, I have to give Roberts major points for two twists she decided to throw in. I saw neither coming and, though clever readers might pick up on one of them, I doubt many people will get the biggie. Twists are good, even otherwise bad books deserve a little cheer for well-placed twists.

I like Ms Roberts' plots and twists and moral dilemmas a lot more than I like her characters, which is somewhat problematic. But I also dislike the lack of answers. I understand and appreciate the reasons why you don't want to give everything up at once, that would be silly. But... we're two books in now and I feel like I know nothing more about why the earthquakes happened and why people started randomly going crazy and killing others than I did when I read the blurb for book one. The action scenes are cool, but I think [b:Rage Within|13185168|Rage Within (Dark Inside, #2)|Jeyn Roberts|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1324762057s/13185168.jpg|18365828] should have delivered more on the answers front. Let's hope they're seriously epic when we get them!

There is one more thing that stops me from giving these novels a higher rating and it's strange because it's at odds with other parts of the books. They sometimes seem juvenile in their handling of certain matters... which is weird when you think that the stories actually contain plenty of violence and scenes of torture. Very weird indeed. Or perhaps the word I'm looking for isn't juvenile but "cheesy", like when one of the girls - I forget which - is in a bad situation and she hears the voice of her mum speaking to her and she is able to overcome her immediate problems. That's a little [a:Nicholas Sparks|2345|Nicholas Sparks|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1332884095p2/2345.jpg]-ish, right?

Oh, and I think I'm a little morally incompatible with the characters at times, I don't understand their ways of thinking.

Like this:

"Stealing from the dead! Clementine was horrified. She'd seen a hell of a lot of bad things over the past six weeks. She'd even done some of those unmentionables herself. But taking personal items from the dead... well, that seemed wrong on levels she couldn't even begin to imagine.
Clementine didn't think. The anger surged forth, forcing her into action. Raising her baseball bat, she charged."

Okay. So it's wrong to steal from the dead but perfectly fine to bash a living person's brains in with a baseball bat? Right. Also, get real. It's the end of the world, just be thankful you don't have to eat the dead... yet. Another issue of morality arises when Mason and Daniel are faced with some child Baggers (what they call the people who were affected by the earthquakes) and Mason is unsure whether he can harm them: "It was one thing to kill Baggers. But child Baggers?"

Let me ask you something. Could you harm this?


Only if you're a psycho, right? So how about this?


One would bloody well hope so. Sometimes children are monsters when the apocalypse comes and if you don't kill them they're going to eat or do something equally nefarious to you. When it's you or the evil freaky children there's no need to pretend to think about it, we won't judge you.

So whether this is a trilogy or a series or whatever, for now I am reading on. This is quite a big thing because I don't often carry on after three star books. I expect a really good ending. Or else. show less

Dark Inside is an intense and bloody thrill ride. This book is packed with heart stopping action from the very first page straight through to the last, you just can't put it down. With relatable characters and true to life scenarios this book scared the friggin pants off me. I was up all night, not reading, just trying to stop jumping at every stupid little noise. You know a story has impact when your wondering if your neighbors have turned into bloodthirsty killing machines.
The story has a show more 28 days later feel, but even scarier is the fact that the people in this version don't turn into mindless zombies. Jeyn Roberts' monster retain their problem solving skills, meaning no matter where you go, they'll find you. They can even trick you into thinking they haven't been affected and pounce when your back is turned. So how could I not be awed by the iron will her characters have and the hope they refuse to lose. Four teenagers who have lost everything, the whole world turned to chaos around them, and yet they still push forward searching for safety. This is literally the definition of me against the world.
If you haven't noticed already, I love this book. Everything about it. The people, the fast paced plot, the insanity that this could actually happen, the foreboding feeling that lingers while you read it. I've even wondered if maybe her theory about the fall of these ancient civilization is dead on. If you like dystopian you should definitely read this. It isn't post-apocalyptic, it IS the apocalypse, so definitely something you'd enjoy. Jeyn Roberts made a killer debut with this book and I am pining for more of her work. 5 out of 5, obviously. show less