The Darkness Outside Us

I've got a soft spot for sci-fi and queer romance, so I wasn't surprised how quickly I fell in love with this book. What did surprise me was how this story kept pulling the rug out from under me, forcing me to continually re-evaluate everything I thought I knew about the characters, their environment, their mission, and their fates.

As a sci-fi, it is a masterful piece of story craft. As a romance, my poor, tender heart got all but pulped due to catch-and-release throughout the storyline.

This book blew my mind about ten times over. It truly kept me… show more.

The twists and turns were so surprising. Every reveal wowed me!

I love how smart this book is, even as it takes us to very dark and depressing places and forces the characters to contemplate life over huge spans of time.

At first, it’s just a book about two guys on a spaceship, running a routine mission to a nearby planet. But the ship or someone is deceiving them. They find out they aren’t on a simple mission, they find out they’re probably the last two people left in the world, they fall in love and then they are killed by the ship (but that’s not the end of their lives).… show more.

This science fiction novel from Eliot Schrefer has it all: a thrilling adventure in space, a disembodied robot withholding information, and a pair of adorably opposite boys falling in love. This dramatic story about survival, love, and love as a means of survival is on the upper end of YA, but it’s one you don’t want to miss! Be prepared to laugh, cry, swoon, and throw your book across the room in shock because this one will stick with you long after the final page.