Just a disclaimer that this is not really a review of the book so much as the other reviews I've seen.

The two largest complaints I've seen are 1) it is not realistic and 2) it is too political. I'm going to start with the second one of these.

If you read the back of the book, you would see that it is between the son of the President, and a Prince of Wales. If you start the book itself, you learn pretty quickly that the main character is very invested in politics (read further, and you find nearly all his friends involved in it, as well as both his parents). I honestly have to wonder how you did not expect politics to be a big deal in this.

Now for the first, why must it be realistic? Yeah, maybe it's nice every now and then, but I don't know about you, but I'm going to enjoy a LGBT book that has a happy ending, especially in this political climate.

In the end, the only complaint I really had was that sometimes the author did not seem to fully understand sentence structure, but this is a mistake I fully forgive cause the plot was amazing, and this is their debut novel. They have time to get it right. (SPOILERS FOR THIS PART! I also forgot I really wanted to learn more about June's relationship, because she is clearly hiding something, and Alex can be kind of clueless)

I received a copy of the first four chapters from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. As these are only the first few chapters, my review and rating will be updated as needed after reading the full book.

This story picks up from Arthur's POV almost exactly where House in the Cerulean Sea ends. Whether this book was originally planned as a sequel or not, the characters still all sound the same, and Arthur is a distinct voice from Linus, which isn't always true of POV shifts.

I do get the sense that this might be harder to read than the previous book. While the people are the same and the humor is still there, it's dealing with the aftermath of trauma and a government that minority groups know is often against us directly, instead of the indirect approach that Linus demonstrated.

Apart from a slightly confusing start (which I hope gets addressed more later in the book), this promises to be very good and I am looking forward to reading it when it comes out.

Edit: From chapter 5 on my reading of this book is not associated with NetGalley at all.

As stated in my original review, this book is harder to read than the original. It is much more direct about trauma and the role the government often plays in it. Sometimes, though rarely, I needed to put my book down because of it. As a trans American, it's possible this was exacerbated by the recent election, especially given that the author himself at least suggests this book is an allegory for being trans in this political climate.

This book does manage to stay happy. To be honest it almost feels too perfect and happy at the very end, but we need that sometimes. It is still just as worth reading as House in the Cerulean Sea originally was.

The Darkness Outside of Us should have stayed as a stand alone. I was very much looking forward to this book after enjoying that one so much, but it failed to come even close to my expectations.

There are four different POVs in this book and every single one reads the same. They might all have different wants but there is no distinctive voice, even for the two original characters that are supposed to be more fleshed out.

There is also faulty science in this book. As an example, the author claims a singular mammal species survived the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs, which appears to be a misinterpretation of the fact 9 in 10 mammal species went extinct then (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220812-dinosaur-extinction-why-did-mammals-survive). There is another situation regarding excess testosterone, which has more side effects than the author seems to acknowledge. There are other instances but these are the first two to come to mind, as well as the ones I am more familiar with.

Finally, while it was not mentioned in the last 2/3 of the book, Owl mentions at least 4 times in the first 100 pages how much she hates being the only person both capable of and possibly expected to carry a kid and co-parent with her brother. It is never mentioned again after that to my knowledge despite this. It's admittedly very odd and out of place with the rest of the book.

Overall, this book was not worth it, and I am not entirely sure the author knew what he was doing for a good chunk of it.