The Darkness Outside Us
-
-
4.6 • 147 Ratings
-
-
- $13.99
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
They Both Die at the End meets Gravity in this mind-bending sci-fi mystery and tender love story about two boys aboard a spaceship sent on a rescue mission, from two-time National Book Award finalist Eliot Schrefer. Stonewall Honor Award winner!
Two boys, alone in space. Sworn enemies sent on the same rescue mission.
Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor with no memory of a launch. There’s more that doesn’t add up: evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed—not when he’s rescuing his own sister.
In order to survive the ship’s secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust each other . . . especially once they discover what they are truly up against. Love might be the only way to survive.
* Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best Books of the Year * A Booklist Editor's Choice of the Year * A BCCB Blue Ribbon Book of the Year * A YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults & Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults Book of the Year *
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this sexy space odyssey by Schrefer (The Popper Penguin Rescue) set in 2472, Earth's two remaining—and warring—countries, Dimokratía and Fédération, mount a mission to rescue Fédération's Minerva Cusk, who sends a distress signal after being sent to colonize one of Saturn's moons. The progeny of a corporate figurehead mother and Alexander the Great's "reconstructed sperm," 17-year-old Ambrose, who has "molten bronze" skin, is dedicated to rescuing his sister. Upon awakening in the Coordinated Endeavor's infirmary, however, he learns that he's been in a coma following a launch accident—and that he's sharing the ship with a Dimokrat-ían spacefarer named Kodiak Celius, an orphan with olive skin. Wary of each other at first, the two slowly join forces as they complete the surveillance-obsessed Operating System's log of tasks, notice strange things about the ship's cargo, and together enjoy manicotti en route to falling in love. Against a backdrop of speculative fiction tropes and Cold War–like identity politics, Schrefer's immersive novel combines the build of mysteries and the tension of romance, slowly unfurling an iterative story about love and attraction, destiny, and connection. Ages 13–up.
Customer Reviews
It Changes Lives
If you want lighthearted romance don’t read this. Read this if you want to see yourself truly as a person and deepen your understanding of what love, loneliness, despair and hope all mean. This book has given me nightmares. It was simply amazing. It unsettled me but yet soothed me. It healed me but it created more wounds. This was phenomenal.
OMG
This book is one of the best books I have ever read! So many twists and turns and leaves you questioning everything. Incredibly well written and thought provoking.
Lovely story
Despite the fact the whole premise of the story seems … unnecessarily and unrealistically complex, the core plot is pretty great. I enjoyed the writing style the author used and appreciate the forward thinking of some of the details.
It’s a cute story.