A review by paloverdepages
Into the Dark by Gena Showalter

fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.25

Interested in mythology and monsters? Well this book has them all! Not only the Greek pantheon, but the Roman one as well! And Titans, and vampires! And somehow the Christian depiction of hell? *checks notes* And Atlantis. And probably some made up gods too I don't know.

The Darkest Fire - Absolutely no chemistry. "Villains" are just walking quips or faceless mobs. Ungrounded and bland. Adventure Time 3x24 "Ghost Princess" did the ending LEAGUES better. And you gave yourself ALL of mythology to play with, and somehow you fumbled the bag with a sad pass at monsterfucker romance? Stick to one thing and do it poorly.

The Amazon's Curse - [TW: mentions of past sexual assault] This one has a vampire in it??? I couldn't get over the vampire. Doesn't really follow any of the vampire rules... you can just have someone drink blood. That's okay. (Or explore another monster for the love of god, the other captives seem SO much more interesting.) Oh, and this is where I noticed that she calls women "females" a lot! Uncomfy! Also calls men "males," so equal opportunity I guess? Still not into it. I also have no idea how any of these characters are connected to each other. It explicitly states that
some people are sisters, and had a fight?
The reader never finds out anything about that, character development isn't important.

The Darkest Prison - This is where you can really tell that the author just... hates women. The internalized misogyny has never been more prevalent. Most of the "romance" centers around the fact that
Nike is ugly (because she's masculine and brash, etc), but Atlas loves her anyway
. The author tries to use a framed narrative to place this story within her larger "cinematic universe" and seems to have forgotten about that by the end. She seems to forget a lot of things about her world. The
high-tech prison threw me off, I thought it was all magic
? Pick a lane.
I will admit, there were a few pieces of dialogue in this story that I really enjoyed. But on the whole, it was stiff and unnatural.

For being romance/erotica, there is NO EROTICISM in here. It's all just so... plain. There aren't really any sex scenes? They're all blink-and-you'll-miss-it. Overall very poorly written; any internal monologues or dialogue just makes the characters seem so flat, and the narration does a LOT of telling. I don't think a single thing is shown, actually. The chapters seem to be so short just to have a mic-drop moment when one ends. Without fail, the point of view character thinks long and hard about something, explaining their feelings to the reader in mind-numbing clarity, and apparently reading that whole thought process happens in real time and another character has to snap them out of their reverie for the plot to progress.

This book has lots of bonus content at the end. She writes little notes to the reader as some of her characters and interviews with them, which is kinda cute. However, there's a line in the excerpt from Awakening Pandora (and a few other lines scattered throughout this book) that
just make me... apprehensive... about how the author writes about race.


I'm gonna say it: this book is bad. There are enormous sweeping bookshelves worth of better erotica out there in the world. But you know what? Good on you, girlie. You got this published. Thanks for making me feel a million times better about my writing abilities. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings