The sequel to The Darkness Outside of Us. I enjoyed it! It's both interestingly different from the first book and is satisfying on the level of "I want more of this," which is exactly what one wants from a sequel.

Literally everything about this book is massively spoilery for the first one, including its premise. I'll do two sets of spoiler cuts, one for the premise and one for the whole book.

( Premise spoilers )

Stop reading here if you don't want to be spoiled for the entire book.


( Entire book spoilers )

A teenage boy, Ambrose, wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there. OS, the AI programmed with his mother's voice, reminds him that he's on a mission to rescue his sister, who went to Titan two years ago and sent out a distress call. And also, he has a surprise companion on a journey he thought would be solo: Kodiak, a teenage boy from the rival nation, who is ensconced in his own quarters and refuses to come out.

Ambrose, who is a typical teenager in lots of ways apart from being a genius and an astronaut, manages to coax Kodiak out and immediately starts thinking lustful thoughts about him. Kodiak, whose country is much more austere and militarized than Ambrose's, very gradually warms up to him.

And then what I thought was going to be a slow-burn gay YA romance in a science fiction setting takes a huge left turn. To be fair, it does still centrally involve a gay YA romance. But the science fiction aspect isn't just there as a cool background. It's actually a YA science fiction novel that has a romance along with a plot that goes in multiple unexpected directions, and is very moving in a way that's only possible because of the science fiction elements.

If you're a stickler for hard science fiction in which everything is definitely possible/likely, this probably has at least one too many "I don't think that's likely to work that way" moments for you. But if you'd like to read a fun and touching science fiction adventure-romance that will probably surprise you at least once, just read the book without knowing anything more.

( Spoilers! )