The Darkness Outside Us

Two young men, each from one of the last two countries left on Earth, are sent on a mission to rescue another astronaut (who happens to be the sister of one of them), who has sent a distress call from Titan. Ambrose wakes up shaky and with no memory of the launch, and he can't seem to get any answers about it from the OS. Kodiak, the other member of the mission, is mostly unresponsive to Ambrose's attempts to befriend him or get answers from him. But when the two of them start to doubt the motives of the OS and the mission in general, they start investigating what's really going on, and the answers they find are not at all what they expected, nor is the growing feelings between them.

It's difficult to do this one any justice without show more spoilers, but believe me when I say that it's a doozie, and in all kinds of good ways. Interesting twists, a HAL-like OS, and an intense yet sweet love story. It was fantastic. show less

WARNING: This is marketed as a "tender romance within a mind-bending mystery" and sold at a YA price point, but this book is NOT a romance and it is NOT YA.

What you do have here is a very well-written, extremely engrossing sci-fi thriller with a moralistic romance subplot that feels extremely tacked-on. You have characters who feel like they're in their early twenties saying they're seventeen. (For instance, the main character -- who is presumably still in high school, even though his spacefaring programs feels a lot more like a graduate program to me -- talks about getting drunk and kissing four classmates in one day.) I am making this up, but it feels to me like Schrefer wrote a New Adult sci-fi thriller and then, to get it published, show more had to age it down and heat it up. This bothers me. (I'm an aspiring writer of New Adult fantasy.)

Of course, this begs the question: what makes a book YA? Censored content: lack of explicit sex and cuss words, but violence is okay? A light tone, easy topics? This book has no explicit sex, but there is a lot of violence and some really, really heavy topics. Like... really heavy. I am very much not a young adult, and this book has me perturbed. It feels almost as though books shouldn't be marketed as "Young Adult" or not but should rather have some sort of "Suitable for YA" rating system... but I digress.

I've got a lot more thoughts, but I can't write them here without huge spoilers. So, I'll just say this: The book is worth the read. It's got some pacing issues, but the twists are great. (Don't read the sequel's blurb or you'll get spoiled.) Don't go into it expecting a teen (i.e., cozy) sci-fi romance and you'll come out the other end better for it. And don't go into it if you hope to publish your own New adult cozy fantasy traditionally or you'll come out hatin show less

When you look at the cover and expected a cute love story in space and it turns out to be a horrifyingly depressing scifi terror of intense grief and suffocating loss. Space is fucking scary. That said, it was very well written and a great plot. The first half was also unexpectedly hilarious. It does end well so at least the trauma paid off.

So much scarier, more interesting, and more moving than I was expecting, and, though I thrive from queer romcom in space, that is not at ALL what this book is and I agree with other reviewers who feel like the marketing for this book (and even the publishing categorization as Young Adult*) was a bit off. This is pure existentialist science fiction, and, while Young Adult can certainly be dark, certainly be existential, the only thing here that makes this feel like a YA novel is the characters being inexplicably 17 years old (which felt odd for the plot, even given the half-hearted explanation for it, and off for the characters who felt more like kids in their early 20s) and some of the prose feeling a bit stilted in a way that had me show more feeling pretty "meh" for the first part of the book... until the twist came, and then it wrecked me, and now I'm left here at 4 in the morning, thinking about the nature of existence, of memory, of love ... good times. :)

* again, I'm hardly one to disparage Young Adult, considering how much of my academic career and personal time I dedicate to my love for it, but it is kind of a drag that this book wasn't marketed for what it actually is and might slip through the cracks and not into the hands of folks who might love it, but who overlooked it because they thought it was a more lighthearted YA romance. The unrighteous dismissal of YA strikes again, but, really, I do feel this title would have made more sense as a New Adult title, if nothing else.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a free digital ARC of this book. show less

I am always very skeptical going into a new book, knowing it's YA sci-fi (especially if there's going to be a romance element). However, this book was nothing I expected.

The romance was a side plot supporting the main story (which is usually the complete opposite with YA) and the central plot was what kept me turning pages. The main characters were 17 and 18, but that was something I effectively forgot about outside of the instances where the ages were mentioned. This would have worked even better if the book wasn't marketed towards the YA crowd and the characters were actual adults (as that was how they behaved).

From the get go, there's a strong sense of "do not trust anyone or anything", but I did not see the twist coming. (I'm show more pretty sure I gasped out loud.) The structuring of the book was very smart, and I absolutely cried like a little baby when the truth hit. So cleverly done.

I'm very much of two minds about the very end of the book, but I think it was the only way to wrap the story up without making this a very different story.

Easily my favorite YA sci-fi! show less

The thing about good books is that when I sit down to write a review I can become stumped about what to give away in the review. "The Darkness Outside Us" by Eliot Schrefer is one of those books that I absolutely loved and I'm afraid to give away too much because I don't want to ruin the plot. This is a book that is best discovered as you read it.

So, Ambrose wakes up on board a space ship that is hurtling towards his sister. Minerva was sent to be the first settler on Titan and is in trouble. Ambrose has been sent to answer her mayday call. He's prepared his whole life for a mission just like that... and he's ready. His sister is the only one of his many siblings that he's close to. The problem is that when Ambrose first wakes up there show more are a lot of things that don't make sense.

First of all, the ship's operating system has the voice of his mother - a bit disconcerting to say the least. There's one other person on the Coordinated Endeavour and that is a representative of the Federation. The enemy countries may have had to work together to get the ship off the ground but that doesn't seem to mean that his shipmate is going to be friendly. In fact, it's days before Ambrose can even persuade Kodiak to open the door to his half of the ship.

As the time passes, the Ship's operating system gives the two crew members maintenance tasks and things seem to become a bit more strange. It's almost like someone has been on the ship before the two current crew woke up. Sometimes, the operating system says very strange things... and Ambrose still finds he has no memory of anything that happened past the launch of the Endeavour.

Ambrose is a great character. He's been genetically engineered to be perfect for his role - right down to having a bit of genetic material from Alexander the Great. He's outspoken, clever, thoughtful and emotional... and determined to rescue his sister. In fact, he's willing to do whatever it takes to get to Minerva and rescue her. On the other hand, Kodiak is the opposite in so many ways. He was raised as an orphan to be independent and focused on nothing but what he was ordered to do. He's had little opportunity to form bonds with people and it shows when the two shipmates finally meet face to face.

This book is told through Ambrose's POV and is interspersed with some video/voice records. As far as I'm concerned... it's brilliant. I would love to see it as a movie!

This is the point at which I'm not going to give away any more detail. I really want to encourage people to read this book knowing as little as possible going in. This book is marketed as though it's a YA romance but I would say it's SO much more than that. At it's core this book is about life! What does life really mean to us? How much control do we have over our path? What is worth fighting for? What is worth living for? It may seem as though I'm over stating it a bit, but I'm really not. This book explores life ... at it's basic level and then all of the complex things in between. show less

4 1/2 stars. The Darkness Outside Us takes you on a wild ride. At the beginning it seems like it will be a space opera romance between Ambrose and Kodiak, astronauts from the two remaining countries on Earth, sent into space to rescue Ambrose's sister. When they start exploring the ship, however, they encounter some unusual evidence that makes them question everything about their mission. The novel explores what it means to be human, what gives life meaning, and the nature of love, among other things. I thought Ambrose was a bit annoying at first, but keep reading and you will have a hard time putting it down until you get to the final revelation.