Oh my dear gods this was one Hell of a scary book! I mean it. The concept totally freaked me out and there may have been a night or two where I “accidentally” left a light on when I went to sleep. Not that it stopped my overactive imagination from thinking about Dark Inside once I fell asleep. There were nightmares.
I loves me a good plague book. And this, kiddies, is a damn good plague book. But the folks don’t die of the plague in a fit of bloody coughing and oozing orifices, no. Instead it turns regular old peeps into murderous maniacs, hacking and pulling apart anyone who isn’t infected. Scary shit, my friends, scary shit.
Dark Inside is told from the view point of different teen survivors as they deal with the plague and the earthquake that preceded the plague, and also what the world becomes in the weeks after the plaque hits. What I loved about these different view points is that not all the kids are super nice, super hero types. There are some dark characters in this book. Damaged souls. It just added another layer of delicious awfulness to the story: when disaster hits, not everyone rises to the occasion.
There’s an element of the supernatural in Dark Inside, although we aren’t 100% sure what that is. The author does an amazing job of showing and not simply telling. Even at the end of the book I wasn’t sure where the plague came from or what the ultimate goal was. But one thing I did know: it was nasty and evil and extremely determined.
I usually hate making book comparisons, but Dark Inside reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s The Stand. Smooshed together with one of my fave movies, 28 Days Later. That’s not to say that Roberts was copying either. But the tone and epicness of Dark Inside was reminiscent of both, in a good way.
This was a unique read that had everything I love about a good post-apocalyptic plague book: multiple points of view, freakyplague, lots of evil folks and a desperation that I could feel in every page.
For me, the only thing scarier than Dark Inside is the fact that I have to wait so long for the next book.
This was another surprise book from the amazing folks at Simon and Schuster Canada.