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A review by crofteereader
A Neon Darkness by Lauren Shippen
3.0
Overall a more compelling story than its predecessor, The Infinite Noise, A Neon Darkness was, nonetheless, absolutely infuriating to me. Objectively I know that, if these situations and characters were real, this is exactly how they would have played out. But fiction follows different rules, requires growth and change and forward momentum - and this didn't really have any of that.
Robert is desperately lonely, but he's also a white boy whose every want influences everyone around him into catering to it. When he meets other people with powers like his, including a Black pansexual woman and an Indonesian lesbian, his reign of manipulation - whether conscious or not - comes into question.
The plot outside of the main character's manipulative BS was intriguing but not totally fleshed out. Someone is kidnapping and experimenting on Atypicals (called Unusuals in this book) but it seems like there are two different factions at work and we get none of the details about either. I liked getting more variety in our characters as three are Unusuals and all bring different things to the table - between racial, religious, and sexual diversity as well as differing life stories (a military background, a religious upbringing, the party scene, etc).
But for a book that's only 250 pages, it took me forever to read. Because there was no momentum. I would have loved this as maybe a novella - a taste of this universe and these characters without getting sucked into Robert's vortex of repetitive emotional abuse.
**(vague) SPOILERS BELOW**
The part that was infuriating? Rather than growing, changing, adapting, the main character INSISTS that he is either a) doing nothing wrong or b) can't control his power. And by not accepting it, the plot goes NOWHERE. Things happen on the outside, certainly, the situations change. But the emotional and manipulative vortex he traps his friends in doesn't change and he doesn't grow as a person. Because his desires overpower people always, he can steamroll any conversation that makes him uncomfortable. And when he pushes things too far over and over, he tries to make everyone pretend they're happy families again and it all comes crumbling down.
{Thank you TorTeen for the finished copy; all thoughts are my own}
Robert is desperately lonely, but he's also a white boy whose every want influences everyone around him into catering to it. When he meets other people with powers like his, including a Black pansexual woman and an Indonesian lesbian, his reign of manipulation - whether conscious or not - comes into question.
The plot outside of the main character's manipulative BS was intriguing but not totally fleshed out. Someone is kidnapping and experimenting on Atypicals (called Unusuals in this book) but it seems like there are two different factions at work and we get none of the details about either. I liked getting more variety in our characters as three are Unusuals and all bring different things to the table - between racial, religious, and sexual diversity as well as differing life stories (a military background, a religious upbringing, the party scene, etc).
But for a book that's only 250 pages, it took me forever to read. Because there was no momentum. I would have loved this as maybe a novella - a taste of this universe and these characters without getting sucked into Robert's vortex of repetitive emotional abuse.
**(vague) SPOILERS BELOW**
The part that was infuriating? Rather than growing, changing, adapting, the main character INSISTS that he is either a) doing nothing wrong or b) can't control his power. And by not accepting it, the plot goes NOWHERE. Things happen on the outside, certainly, the situations change. But the emotional and manipulative vortex he traps his friends in doesn't change and he doesn't grow as a person. Because his desires overpower people always, he can steamroll any conversation that makes him uncomfortable. And when he pushes things too far over and over, he tries to make everyone pretend they're happy families again and it all comes crumbling down.
{Thank you TorTeen for the finished copy; all thoughts are my own}