Dark Inside

Dark Inside
Jeyn Roberts
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Release Date: September 2, 2011
Pages: 368

Since mankind began, civilizations have always fallen: the Romans, the Greeks, the Aztecs…Now it’s our turn. Huge earthquakes rock the world. Cities are destroyed. But something even more awful is happening. An ancient evil has been unleashed, turning everday people into hunters, killers, crazies.

Mason's mother is dying after a terrible car accident. As he endures a last vigil at her 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 bystanding crowd.

Where do you go for justice when even the lawmakers have turned bad? 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.

This book read like a movie. The whole time I was reading, I could just imagine actually watching this. I haven't read a book like that in a while, if ever. And that is what I really enjoyed about this book. 

This is an apocalyptic book, but in this it's during the apocalypse, which is something that hasn't been touched on as much as post-apocalyptic. And I didn't think of this much before. But I much appreciate this book for bringing a new take into this type of book--not quite dystopian, but apocalyptic nevertheless.

I also like the monsters of this book. It was something of a mix of The Crazies with a more coherent person. And something about that was frightening--that they were still people, but with a desire to hurt and kill. This is also something new that I appreciated.

I think one place that this book fell flat is the characters. While I still really enjoyed this book, it was not because of the characters. It's not that I didn't like any of the characters. It just wasn't a strong point of the book.  

Jeyn Roberts brings something new to the YA genre. I've seen these things in other places, but not in YA. And it was very refreshing and something that I really enjoyed.