Karen's Reviews > Pitch Dark

4.5 stars

Originally posted at For What It's Worth on 3/26/18: http://www.fwiwreviews.net/2018/03/mo...

Source: arc provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Pitch Dark dives right in and doesn’t let go. That’s both a pro and a con. For almost 1/3 of the book, I was completely lost when it came to some of the slang (for example, one of the characters says *wedge me* instead of swearing – like when BSG uses frak instead of fuck) and it just seemed like such a silly term it kept distracting me. Tuck said *bruh* a lot and no. Just no. I’m not a huge sci-fi reader and a lot of the technical aspects went right over my head.

However, the characters are are tough as nails, adaptive and snarky, the action unrelenting and gruesome with an eerie sense of terror looming around every corner. There’s a slight romance between Laura (pronounced Lao-ra) and Tuck but it’s not overbearing – they’ve got shit to do – like fighting off creepy af monsters.

Pros: strong characters, sci-fi/horror mash-up while touching on values, privilege, eco-terrorism and family, with lots of gory action (I’ve read gorier but this was pretty good for YA – think Aliens level gore)

Cons: not a lot of answers or explanations for things, a lot of terminology and phrases that were confusing at times until you got used to the writing.

Despite a few quibbles, I really enjoyed this one and finished it in just a few hours.