The Darkness Between Us by Eliot Schrefer

Released June 2021

This book was gripping! I sat down Sunday night at 8 pm, thinking I would read a couple chapters. At 2 am I stumbled out of my office, bleary eyed and thrilled, after reading the whole book. Also, I had been so stoked to find a LGBTQ+ book at Target! Target! I am trilled to be living in the future. Keep ’em coming. Okay, now back to the regularly scheduled book review.

The book starts off with Ambrose waking up aboard a spaceship headed to save (or recover the body of) Minerva, Ambrose’s sister. He has no memories of the launch and then he is told by the ship’s Operating System (OS) that there is another person on board this spaceship.

The book is a whirlwind of who to trust. The OS is creepy to start off with and even references Ambrose’s uneasiness with it (thereby calling out the reader for it as well). This had me wondering if being creeped out by the OS was a result of other sci-fi I’ve read and watched. This was smooth and built the feeling of uneasiness through out the first half of the book.

The rest of the book is far more mental health and socially oriented. Ambrose’s and Kodiak’s reactions feel real. Schrefer made these characters wonderfully relatable. Often times it is difficult to capture what a teenager would do in dire situations, but Ambrose and Kodiak react very much like teenagers caught in a cycle of uneasy distrust. They are characterized very well.

The setting is well described as the boys are stuck on board the spaceship just about the whole book, and because the world of the book is well built up by each boy’s memories, being stuck on the ship doesn’t hurt the book’s pace or flow at all. Schrefer utilized the limited space to it’s utmost. Ambrose and Kodiak end up investigating the whole ship and often the plot is propelled or halted by the physical limitations.

I think this book will be one that people come back to again and again.

Very much recommend!

Where to buy:

Target apparently!

E-book

Audiobook