Me on Dark Inside

Title: Dark Inside
Author: Jeyn Roberts
Release Date: November 1, 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Since mankind began, civilizations have always fallen: the Romans, the Greeks, the Aztecs. Now it’s our turn. But something even more awful is happening. An ancient evil has been unleashed, turning everday people into hunters, killers, crazies. As Mason endures a last vigil at his mother's hospital bed, his school is bombed and razed to the ground, and everyone he knows is killed. Aries survives an earthquake aftershock on a bus and thinks the worst is over when a mysterious stranger pulls her out of the wreckage, but she’s about to discover a world changed forever. Clementine, the only survivor of an emergency town hall meeting that descends into murderous chaos, is on the run from savage strangers who used to be her friends and neighbors. And Michael witnesses a brutal road rage incident that is made much worse by the arrival of the police, who gun down the guilty party and then turn on the watching crowd. These four teens are on the same road in a world gone mad. Struggling to survive, clinging on to love and meaning wherever it can be found, this is a journey into the heart of darkness – but also a journey to find each other and a place of safety.

It took 13 pages for this book to freak me out, and 22 for it to really freak me out and stop reading until it was light out and the people around were awake to keep me from screaming that this book might come true.

It's shocking and freaky and creepy in the outrageously possible sort of way. I imagine people get weird if they live in New York or Los Angeles and they read a book or see a movie where their home it blasted into nothingness. This book did that for me. I live not far from Vancouver, BC, and the idea of a massive earthquake stretching from California to Alaska, totally ruining the area in between, it makes me lose sleep. So many people here are on the edges of their seats, waiting for the next 'big earthquake' to hit and rip the city into two pieces.

So much of this book kept me interested, kept me coming back to it, kept me reading even though it was after the sun went down and the darkness creeped me out even more. There are so many questions in my head, and so many new fears.

This book calls into question humanity as we know it, what we think we are capable of as human beings, what might be hidden under the surface. There are stories of the dark side of humanity, stories of people just losing their minds, but what if most of the population suddenly lost their morals and values? What if an earthquake ripped us apart? What if we had to struggle to survive, run for our lives, scavenge day to day and hope we survived every time the sun rose?

What is Nothing? Who is Nothing? Will anyone survive?

Jeyn Roberts' debut novel will reach deep into the hearts of readers and squeeze tight, not letting go even after the book ends. And the chill down their spines? That will stay with readers for a long time.

(I received an e-galley of this book in the S&S Galley Grab newsletter.)