Rachel the Book Harlot

Beware of the dark... 

"A dark cloud has fallen over the city of Aberdeen, MD.

The population disappears in an instant. For the handful of survivors, those lucky enough to have a light source not connected to the power grid, it's more than terrifying. They’re left alone, walking through a nightmare, and that is a fate that could be worse than death itself."

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"The darkness is alive and it is the reason we fear the night..."

This was fun in all its creepy and suspenseful goodness. In fact, the opening scene creeped me out so much that I was forced to turn all the lights on in my apartment. I mean, really, what could be more shudder inducing than

Um yeah, there would be a cartoon sized, person shaped hole in my wall as I got the hell outta there.

In addition to the creepiness factor, and it does get dialed down a bit as things progress, there was a lot to like here. The story itself was very enjoyable. It kind of reminded me of the film The Faculty for some reason. I'm not sure why since the plots are not at all similar, but they both have a similar tone to them. They both also contain an ensemble cast. 

The Dark is told from the POV of various characters, all mostly strangers, whose worlds collide once the lights go out. I liked the way this was done, and I liked all of the characters. My only complaint was the character of Annie, who was portrayed as the one dimensional stereotypical big boobed "sleazy" girl. She wasn't a nice person, which was fine, but I'm not sure why that also meant there needed to be those additional ingredients in order to punctuate just how not nice she was.

All I can say to that is: Dear Society, stop portraying women who love their bodies and enjoy sex as "not nice, dirty, sleazy, sluts." Thank you.

Aside from that, the ending left much to be desired. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be the start of a series since it's not indicated anywhere, but there were quite a few loose ends. I'm also not a big fan of

But those things were relatively minor. I still thought it was an enjoyable read, and if this does turn into a series, I'll be on board.

Final Rating: 3.5 stars