Review: Before the Darkness
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 08 29, 2013
**NOTE: This is my friend Stephany's review, as she is helping me with my gigantic review pile.**After reading the synopsis on the back, I was lead to believe there was an actual story line. The premise was good, it even had the potential to be great. However, incomplete and stereotypical characters, rushed story line, and grammatical errors plagued every page. The main character, Elliot, is an overly stereotyped gay man wearing a "made with pride" t-shirt with rainbow colored letters and consistently lusting over his fellow survivor's penis. Adam, Elliot's companion, is the overly cautious, never left the closet, gay man. The character personalities alone push the gay rights back decades. However uncomfortably initiated (or in one case completely out of the blue), the love scenes are lustfully and emotionally written. One scene specifically shows the depth of what they share. The story line unfortunately was very rushed. I would even go as far as to say the author wished to focus mainly on sex. The characters could not stop to rest in a post-apocalyptic world without attacking each other. The dialogue is sadly childish and petty. It focuses mostly on how hesitant Adam is to show his feelings after living most of his life as straight. Also, Elliot cannot have a single thought outside of sex. If there was more of a focus on developing a story line and the emotional as well as physical connection between Elliot and Adam, I might be more excited to finally learn what Refuge Inc. consists of in book two. However, as of now, I don't think I will do more than consider reading the sequel.