Review: Pitch Dark

Pitch Dark by Courtney Alameda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading this book on the same weekend in which I got to finally see A Quiet Place, I thought they paired very well, featuring aliens that hunted by sound and some pretty gnarly body horror. There the similarities kinda end, though, because while A Quiet Place is a straight up horror show without much in the way of humor (if anything), Pitch Dark throws in significant levels of both humor and drama. And also some even stronger social commentary, largely rooted in Laura's part of the story - because she has to deal with a supremely abusive ex-boyfriend who not only forces her to wear a subjugator that lets him digitally control her at all times (if you're like me, then when you learn about the subjugator, you'll run around the room trying to fight off all the Falling Skies harness flashbacks), but said ex also repeatedly pronounces her name in English instead of Spanish. Then he insists he's not at all racist, showing that he's cut from much the same cloth as Hailey from The Hate U Give. In other words, he's either in severe denial or severely pathological a liar. (I'm gonna go with the latter.) I can tell you, though, that thanks to Alameda infusing her #ownvoices experience into Laura, her storyline ends with serious satisfaction, even if it doesn't end in we the readers getting to personally beat Sebastian's head in. Alameda does just as great a job with her other POV lead too. Tuck is oddly lovable, made of complete and utter win and tons of retro movie references, especially to Die Hard. If my buddy Koda ever gets into acting, I hope he gets to play Tuck in the movie of this book - he's the first and only person I fancast for the part. Together with Laura, Tuck takes on a ton of actionized responsibility, a weight they both carry marvelously.

My one hope: I really, really hope this one isn't a standalone. It works pretty well as one, but it'd be such a crime to leave Laura and Tuck and never pick up their story again.

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