enjoyable read that I think many will enjoy. I have already recommended it to my fellow book friends.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book has distinct My Year of Rest and Relaxation vibes, but is possibly more unhinged (and less funny). At first I was intrigued by the unlikeable main character (and I’m generally a fan of unlikeable female characters) but her snark quickly became tiresome. I found her lack of self introspection to be boring, and I was surprised that she couldn’t see where things were going in her quest to find David Adler. I enjoyed her interactions with her best friend and when the action ramped up near the end of the narrative. Excellent narrator!

"Here in the Dark" audiobook by Alexis Soloski is a gripping thriller with impeccable narration. Soloski's storytelling keeps you hooked, delivering a captivating experience. While some plot elements may feel predictable, the overall atmosphere and tension make it a worthwhile listen for fans of the genre.

This book reminded me very much of My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh as it features an unreliable, female narrator numbing herself to avoid reality. I will say this protagonist, Vivian is much less "likable" in the sense that she is more remorselessly cutting, petty and entitled than I remember Moshfegh's unnamed narrator to be. Vivian is interesting in this sense; she is grasping and desperate in a way that is sometimes difficult to read in the good way in that it feels quite stark/unique and in the bad way in that it also eventually gets old. As Vivian breaks down, I kept waiting for those moments of vulnerability or insight, or genuine humanity to happen. Or at the very least, a gripping conflict to unfold. The question that most readers ask when they pick up a book whether they admit it or not is: "do I care about any of this?" I found it hard to invest myself in this novel because of how thin the characterization was even for the narrator. I realize the Vivian's inner torment/cynicism, isolates her from her world and many of her actions are rooted in past trauma and self-sabotage but from the beginning it does make for a suspense/psychological thriller that ultimately does not pay off.

The narrator of the audiobook was quite good and I have enjoyed her narration in other audiobooks.

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read and review Here in the Dark on NetGalley.

Published: 12/05/23

Narrator: Laura Benanti

Stars: 4.5

Brilliant. This is the material that had families staring at their radios. It's dark and twisted. I did not see the ending coming. Seriously, I don't try. I want to be entertained; Benanti did her job. She was amazing. Soloski took a personal experience and developed a great tale. I found the theatre backdrop interesting. From show mentions, performances to the role of a critic, I was sold.

The synopsis says it all. The clues are there.

If late night noirs and old radio dramas are your thing, this is a must read.

TW: Language, drinking, smoking, death of parents, toxic friendships, misogyny, sexism, drug use, alcoholism, blood

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:
Vivian Parry likes the dark. A former actress, she now works as the junior theater critic at a major Manhattan magazine. Her nights are spent beyond the lights, in a reserved seat, giving herself over to the shows she loves. By day, she savages them, with words sharper than a knife.

Angling for a promotion, she reluctantly agrees to an interview, a conversation that reveals secrets she thought she had long since buried. Then her interviewer disappears and she learns―from his devastated fiancée―that she was the last person to have seen him alive. When the police refuse to investigate, Vivian does what she promised herself she would never do again: she plays a part. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she turns her critical gaze toward an unsanitary private eye, a sketchy internet startup, a threatening financier, fake blood, and one very real corpse. As she nears the final act, she finds that the boundaries between theater and the real world are more tenuous and more dangerous than even she could have believed. . .
Release Date: December 5th, 2023
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 256
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
1. Writing was okay

What I Didn't Like:
1. More rich people
2. Vivian is so pretentious
3. Stereotype characters
4. Using death by suicide as fun girl language
5. Boring

Overall Thoughts:
{{Disclaimer I write my review as I read}}

Honestly I'm really just questioning why I'm reading this book. Within this book continues tropes I am over;
• Rich people complaining about complicated their lives are (they aren't)
• Actors (so full of themselves)

Within the first few pages of this book I should have known what I was getting myself into when she mentions that she didn't even need the inheritance she got from her grandmother because she was so well off.

Can the police deny a missing person report just because you aren't related? That seems like an odd and dangerous choice. I bet that happens a lot.

What's the obsession with Arena and talking about sweets? That was annoying.

Nooooooo screw that PI. Over here demanding she comes down to him. I'd tell him no. I'd take offense that he said he wants to see if you're lying face to face. Speaking of the PI he is like every character that's been a PI.

There's a lot of references to death by suicide but the author chooses to make it a fun joke that is used by the characters and just dropped into conversations over trivial things. I found those parts weak of the author and in poor taste.

Welders working without shirts.... Really? How would that even be possible? You'd burn your skin so much.

I skimmed to the ending. David is a scorned actor that Vivian wrote a bad review about his acting. He's banded with other actors she's wrote reviews about to make one big play.

Final Thoughts:
At the end of the day I dnfed this book 100 pages into it. I found the characters flat and lifeless. Vivian drove me up the wall with her personality.

I didn't understand the point of a promotion and Vivian having to give an interview. What do those things have to do with each other?

This book felt no different than all those other books that make women drunk and drugged up that they never know what's going on. They don't know what's real. They always pass out at random places. The whole tone of this book was not for me.

IG | Blog


Thanks to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and Flatiron for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Uniquely well-written, dark, descriptive, with a singular tone. I really enjoyed this eclectic listen with a possibly unreliable narrator. I also want to send a special shout out to the author for writing a cool character with POTS. I also have POTS, which is an health condition that results in unexpexted fainting. I've never seen it featured in a book before, and the author did a great job using it here to further both the plot and the characterization.l without trivializing the condition or making it weird.

This book and its heroine are both eccentric and wickedly fun, and the writing is a cut above the usual thriller. Highly recommended

I have become tired of authors whose writing is peppered with “I lived in New York! Here’s an address in New York! Did you know that I know New York?” and this book is chock full of that. I wanted to like it, since everything else about it is interesting, but I got bored with the constant reminders of where the author has spent time!

If you love unlikeable characters and psychological thriller/mysteries, this one's for you! Though a vastly different book, the main character Vivian almost reminds me of the narrator from My Year of Rest and Relaxation — harsh, self-destructive, and getting by with very little food and too many pills. If you need to like a narrator to enjoy a story, I wouldn't recommend this for you. But I loved the suspense and blurred lines of reality in this story, and I thought the narrator of the audiobook did a fantastic job. I really liked it.

Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.

This is dark and psychological story. I had a lot of trouble connecting with or even liking the main character. She is deeply flawed, but also made a lot of reckless decisions. After listening to the author interview after the story, I made more sense of those decisions. I almost wish I had heard that before. The one bright spot for me was the narration.

I will not be finishing this book. The premise is intriguing, but it just wasn't working for me. I finished about a third and can't figure out exactly what was so off-putting to me. Something in the style was unsettling for me.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #MacmillanAudio for a free copy of #HereInTheDark by Alexis Soloski. All opinions are my own.

RIP Dionysus, he would’ve loved this book.

I ate this up.

- the first noir novel I’ve EVER enjoyed
- gritty New York theater scene
- won’t be for everyone but was for me
- all of the characters are unlikable (in the best way)
- I’m ready to read anything that Soloski publishes in the future
- slow burn psychological thriller

Thank you to Macmillan for the gifted copy | Pub date Dec 5, 2023

I enjoyed reading this book. The writing style, topics, and narration were fantastic. The story revolves around Vivian, a theater critic who is struggling with various issues like drug and alcohol dependencies, and childhood trauma, which makes her vulnerable to a breakdown. Vivian is interviewed by a young man who goes missing, and she is the last person to see him. She decides to go undercover to figure out what happened to him. However, she finds herself deeply involved in something unexpected and unprepared.
Vivian is beautifully flawed, and she knows it. The author is a theater critic and used her own experiences to create a character, but added that Vivian has no boundaries. As we slowly watch Vivian unravel we get a glimpse into her mental health, what theater means to her, and how it deeply affects everything that she is and does. She has made this identity by immersing herself in these fictitious worlds.
The pacing and plot are well thought out and everything moves along quite quickly. We get to experience this beautiful noir/psychological suspense and the unraveling of characters in an epic way. There is plenty of humor and biting witticisms sprinkled throughout which brings a bit of levity to the story.
As a debut this is absolute perfection and should be consumed by as many as possible, it will be well worth your time.

A haunting tale that left me feeling like I was teetering on a knife’s edge right alongside Vivian Parry. Vivian is a cynical, precise and increasingly obsessive theatre critic in New York City who becomes trapped in a tangled web when she is the last person to see a missing journalist alive. What follows is a story of intrigue, losing oneself, and revenge, that left me chilled and sent shivers down my spine at multiple points.

What I found particularly compelling was the complete unreliability of Vivian as a narrator, particularly as she lost herself more and more to the ‘investigation’. Witnessing her devolution into self-doubt and emotional instability was so intense and left me troubled over whether to believe her and her truth, or trust all the signs pointing to her psychosis. The narrator did an incredible job of portraying this contentious state of mind, and I felt truly immersed in this captivating story. The ending of this novel was thrilling, if slightly predictable, and I will definitely be on the lookout for more of Soloski’s writing.

Vivian has been trained as an actress since she was a child, making it almost effortless for her to play any part required of her, chameleoning her way through her adult life, pill-poppong and drinking enough to keep her emotions at bay. As a professional theater critic she finds solace in critiquing the work of others until one day she is confronted with a scathing critique of her past and she might just need to give her best performance yet!

HERE IN THE DARK by @soloskialexis is a citizen-sleuth thriller filled with all the drama of the stage, some intriguing social commentary and a mystery that unravels until the end. Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publisher, @macmillan.audio for the audio-ARC.

I really did not like Vivian at all and usually that is a dnf situation for me, but I actually stuck with this one as it seemed pretty obvious that the protagonist being unlikeable and a hot mess was definitely on purpose. I would not necessarily say this was a favorite but it was interesting and dramatic and definitely a surprise in the ending.

💚SMASHBOT💚

#bibliophile #booknerd #booksta #bookreview #bookish #hereinthedark #netgalleyreviewer #netgalley

I requested for two reasons: Laura Benanti was the narrator, and the MC was a theatre critic. I ended up DNFing before the 50% mark. Benanti's narration was the only reason I kept going, but I couldn't stick it out.

I had no connection to the MC. I didn't want to be friends with her. I didn't want to root for her. I didn't want her to fail. I just felt blah about her. Sometimes, I got annoyed, but that wasn't enough to stick around and hope it would change into something else.

The other bummer was I like noir books. I like cat and mouse books. I love NYC and theatre. I also love Laura Benanti, so hearing her perform is an extra perk. But I couldn't get into this. I was bummed.

It gets an extra star because the narration was excellent but plotwise and characterwise, it was a mess for me.

This is one I wanted to love but I struggled to care about the characters or the plot. The characters were just so unlikeable. Sometimes this works for me, but in this case I felt like the story depended on the reader caring about the characters.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

An easy listen while I decorated my house for the holidays. I was intrigued by the premise, but I often found my mind wandering. In the end, I got into it and enjoyed it. I don’t think the book will stay with me.

"Here in the Dark" is a somber book (I listened to the audiobook) with witty characters. The narration is by Tony award-winning Laura Benanti and was a special treat. The author, being a theater critic herself, wrote what she knew. The main character is an actor turned critic Vivian. Vivian soon herself in a sort of watching-waiting game in this mystery. I enjoyed the slow-burn nature of the book. This is the author's debut novel--I'm sure she will delight us in years to come with many more fascinating tales.

Bonus: The audiobook also contains an interview at the end between Soloski and Benanti. The reader learns a bit about each of their backgrounds. Definitely stick around for this!

2/5 stars -- DNF :(

I was interested by kept finding myself thinking of what other books I could be listening to instead. Just didn't hook me and I found the main character irritating. Would be willing to try again in the future.