Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - A Neon Darkness

It's always weird when you read a book where the main character is kind of a baddie.

But I felt the author did a great job of having us empathise with him without sympathising too much or making us forget his own role in all this.

It is so clear that Robert/Damian's view of the world is so skewed,and thst he cannot see this. Every time he fucked up and you thi k he might learn from this, he learns the exact wrong lessons. That combined with 0 accountability make him interesting to read about, impossible to be around.

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theheartisanaro's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad

3.0

This entire book screams "it's Damien's world and we're all just living in it". It was hard to get through and mostly unpleasant to read but I did find myself understanding Damien to some extent and feeling sympathetic towards him. The one thing I didn't like was the occasional switch between perspectives which felt choppy and didn't really add much to the overall plot. I also generally think Lauren Shippen is better at writing podcasts than books, but I'd still recommend this to anyone who likes The Bright Sessions or enjoys reading about an emo teen with no character development.

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poemsarelikepeople's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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saukittome's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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candycain's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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grapehead's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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stardustandrockets's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Bright Sessions has been one of my favorite podcasts for years. When these companion novels were announced I was beyond excited—especially A Neon Darkness because it's the origin story of my favorite character, Damien.

This book was everything I wanted. Insight into why Damien is the way he is, how he got the name Damien, and just how broken of a human he is. Struggling to control his power of persuasion, he doesn’t always know what’s real when it comes to other people. Do they genuinely like him or do they only like him because he wants them to like him? This book focuses on the present while giving little glimpses of the past and what led Robert (Damien) to LA in the first place, the loss of Them. There are also little snippets from the perspective of the other characters prevalent to the story that help push the story along. I don’t always like little interjections like that, but I think the author used them sparingly and in a way that helped the overall story instead of taking away. Because of what Damien can do and what was going on it was nice to have a little peek into the other character’s minds at times. This was especially true knowing that the book doesn’t start out from Damien’s POV (which was a little confusing at first, but was soon cleared up as to why this was the case).

While the whole story isn’t happy (much of what we know about Damien from the podcast isn’t happy, so I don’t know why I expected this story to be happy), it definitely explains a lot about everyone’s favorite (or not so favorite) villain from The Bright Sessions. It breaks my heart knowing what he's gone through and how he can't really trust anyone or himself because of what he can do. Overall I am extremely happy knowing more about Damien and what led him to the events of the podcast. It’s an origin story more than anything and I hope you’ll pick it up. You don’t have to know anything about the podcast to enjoy it, but you’ll definitely get a lot more out of the story if you do. This is another excellent book by Lauren Shippen.

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