I love a good thriller, but am also wildly picky about them. This one was just okay for me. I loved that this was centered around the theater, but I found the characters all unlikeable, so it was hard to root for anyone. By the time that the twist showed up, I was kind of over the story.

Here in the Dark is a great example of a book that I would enjoy, that would keep me thoroughly enthralled, but is made even better by the epic narration of Laura Benanti. There's a reason why she's a Tony-award-winning actress, and she brings here considerable talents and allows the listener to completely immerse themselves in the character of Vivian. Be sure to go all the way through and listen to the interview at the end -- It makes this audiobook even more fabulous!

Vivian Perry is a troubled twenty something theater critic living in the hustle of Manhattan. Following the death of her mother, Vivian finds that the only time her thoughts slow down, are when she is in the audience of a theater and the lights go down. Diving into her role as a critic, Vivian works towards the next step in her career. In doing so, Vivian takes on an interview with a doctorate student, and unfortunately the interview does not seem to go quite as planned. Not thinking much of the interview, Vivian is startled to realize that she was the last person to see the interviewer. Somehow, Vivian then finds her self entangled in the disappearance of the man, and finds herself pursuing the truth of the disappearance.

I will admit the ending twist got me, and although I suspected the ending I was still surprised when the truth finally made itself known. The twist is most likely why I rate this book/story so highly, however, the production of the book was wonderful, and the narrator did a wonderful job bringing the story to life in an entertaining but not over the top way. Additionally, I enjoyed the interview at the end of the audio version between the author and the narrator. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who likes a good psychological thriller, or mystery.

Here In The Dark is a great psychological thriller that will make you question your own sanity at points. While I hated almost every character in this book, I found myself identifying with them at certain points which made me go “yikes.”

Vivian is a very critical theater critic, subsisting on minimal sleep, pills, and booze. When she gets interviewed by a man that gives her the chills, and then said man goes missing - her life launches even further into disarray.

I don’t always love books involving the theater but this one taking place on Broadway (and read by a Broadway actress) knocked it out of the park. Soloski’s dark humor littered throughout this one made me laugh at some of the most tense parts, and I could not stop listening.

Definitely check this one out on audio if you like psychological thrillers, dark humor, unlikeable narrators, and chilling suspense! Out in just over two weeks so hit that pre-order now!

**Thank you to NetGalley, MacMillan Audio, and Flatiron Books for the ALC of this thrilling title!**

I’ve thought about this for a while, and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about this one. I really liked the writing style - it came across as very dark and sinister, and kind of reminded me of They Never Learn by Layne Fargo. I feel like I had a pretty strong emotional response to this book, from intrigue to disgust. The characters were very unlikeable (and they were supposed to be), but if that’s not your thing, this probably isn’t the book for you.

I think the premise of this book was really interesting, and I enjoyed how unreliable the narrator felt. The ending was very twisty, though I did feel like its was foreshadowed quite a bit.

I listened to this on audio, which was narrated by Tony-winning actress Laura Benanti. I really enjoyed her narration, complete with multiple different accents for the cast of characters. The author is a theater critic herself, and I feel like her expertise was well used in this book. The audiobook features an interview between Benanti and Soloski at the end that I found very interesting.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advance listening copy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook narrated by Laura Benanti who absolutely knocked it out of the park. Vivian isn’t very likeable but she is clever and it’s her wit that propels this noir-ish story.

Thank you to NetGalley for my review copy.

Thank you to NetGalley + the publishers for this ARC! This was unfortunately a miss for me — the entirety of this book felt incredibly glacial with little to no drive from its frankly intolerable protagonist.

Vivian Parry is a theatre critic struggling with alcoholism and self-sabotage. However, the latter two concerns don't actually contribute to her petulance as much as her pretentiousness does. Vivian is also crude to the people who care for her, from her boss to her close friends, and even crueler to those she freshly meets (a la strangers-turned-fuckbuddies). At her core, she comes off cruel, apathetic, and excruciating in a way that is neither satirical nor satisfying to read. Unfortunately, painting her in such an insufferable light made it difficult to care for her or the story's mystery in any capacity.

Plot-wise, I felt that this story could be likened to a forgotten loaf of bread left out overnight: cold, stale, and lost on usability. We are introduced to David Adler through his interview with Vivian, then he suddenly vanishes without a trace. Because we as readers only know David through the main character, who is equally disinterested in his disappearance until it becomes her problem, it's a high expectation that the audience would or should care about this suddenly absent character.

While there were other twists and turns throughout the story, they oftentimes came off as inauthentic / trying too hard. There was a portion of this plot where Vivian takes a more investigative approach to unearthing what happened with David by infiltrating his prior workplace, and it could have easily been in the likes of other stories written about unhinged women. However, even this portion (which I considered the most entertaining part of the story by comparison) fell flat on its face and seemed only to be lacking.

The ending felt a bit fruitless, especially after the long-winded journey to get there. Where a slow burn can often reap the greatest rewards in a novel, Here in the Dark sadly flails in its attempt to be climactic.

Slow burn psychological thriller.

Vivian is an actress turned theater critic that finds solace in going to the theater and then writes very harsh reviews of the shows she attends and then spends most of her time drunk or searching for sleeping pills to fight off nightmares. One day this man asks her for an interview to talk about her process and gives her hope that it could turn into spot on a panel she would really like to be apart of. A few days after her interview she learns from this man’s fiancé that he is missing and she was the last one to see him. The police don’t have enough evidence that he didn’t just walk away from his fiancé so Vivian agrees to do some sleuthing to find him.

I found this enjoyable. And I loved the writing, some of the descriptions and witty one liners were very vivid and darkly funny. It was definitely a slooow burn but the pat off at the end was worth it. I definitely didn’t know where we were going but I liked how we got there.

The narrator was really good and the audiobook had an interview with the author that was interesting.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced listening copy.

WOW -what a great mystery told in such a unique way. Good characters to route for and against. Destin was annoying. The audiobook was particularly great.

The audiobook of Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski, narrated by Laura Benanti, is AMAZING! Soloski has an undeniable gift for dialogue. Vivian, our deliciously unlikeable protagonist, is so snarky and sarcastic and undeniably wounded—I loved her. The things she would say out loud, I found myself snort laughing soooooo many times. How is this Soloski's debut??? I already can't wait for her next. And Laura Benanti is pitch perfect as Vivian. I can't imagine anyone else doing such a complex character justice. It wasn't until after I finished the book and was listening to the author/narrator Q&A (don't miss this!) at the end of the book that I looked her up and realized that she's one of my favorite actresses from Younger-the billionaire tech CEO who buys her way onto the NYT bestsellers list- another character we love to hate!!! Highly highly highly recommend! All the stars!!!!!

This is a great, quick read -- very compelling with creative characters and situations.

A theater critic who has such great need and passion to be in the audience finds herself in a crazy situation as she's told she was the last person to see a man who asked to interview her for a project. She falls down a rabbit hole, with her already loose grip on sobriety and society unraveling as she digs into the man's colorful past -- did he run out on his girlfriend, did he embezzle from her father's online gambling site, was it something else?

She goes so far to put on some theater of her own.

Great, entertaining look into why people may or may not want to be the star of the show!

The audiobook, which is a quick read at only 9 hours and 30 minutes was wonderfully narrated by Tony award winning broadway actress Laura Benanti, and I just love her voice. She does a great job of performing all of the characters, though I almost feel as if her voice was a bit too mature and put together for Vivian, who most certainly does not have her shit together.

The author Alexis Soloski is a journalist, and no surprise here, a theater critic herself. It is evident through her story telling that she knows theater well. This plot line was quite the undertaking for what I believe is Soloski’s debut novel. Obviously a talented journalist, I had no issues with her writing, but I did have trouble connecting with the characters and the plot line turned out to be a bit predictable for me.

Watching Vivian unravel this mystery was like watching a dumpster fire. While there are themes of mental health here, Vivian has been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder in the past and is still grieving the loss of her mother, we are forced to watch her make one destructive choice after another. It can be exhausting to watch a character repeatedly make the wrong choice over and over again, for me it brings to mind Fiona from Shameless, I absolutely loved her as a character early on but quickly became burnt out and fed up with her destructive choices. Pretty much everyone in Vivian’s life tells her to let David’s disappearance go, and there truly was no good reason for her to become so involved, yet she assumes the role of lead detective in a case that literally no-one else (even the police) care about.

Vivian and her only friend Justine’s frequent partying, drinking and taking of assorted pills felt repetitive and juvenile. Vivian is constantly looking for the next thing to make her feel numb and nonexistent, and if it’s not the dark anonymity of the theater, it’s sex, pills and booze. It’s no surprise that this, mixed with her history of mental health issues, and her current POTS diagnosis, makes it very difficult to function as a critic, amateur detective or general human being.

We are also forced to watch our main character burn bridges with nearly everyone she has a relationship with. Justine is an iffy friend to begin with, but is the only person who truly knows the real Vivian. Charlie, a brief love interest, is maybe one of the only decent men in this novel (although I was grossed out by his response to Justine’s gynecologist comment) and she repeatedly sabotages this connection by sleeping with an scumbag (married!) detective. Her editor does seem to truly care about her in a fatherly way, but she blows up at him after he suggests rehab for her drinking problem. In the course of her investigation, Vivian is plummeting towards rock bottom and it is exhausting to watch.

This is certainly a slow burn, and when Vivian took vacation time at her real job, only to work undercover as a receptionist for a sketchy start-up, I truly was bored out of my mind. Some of the things Vivian does, like the office job, doesn’t seem worth it in terms of what she gains in her investigation, and ultimately in what it adds to the story. A lot of things that happened felt so unlikely and unrealistic to me, yet the conclusion wouldn’t have worked without them, which made the whole plot feel a bit wobbly. There was a certain piece of dialogue pretty early on which helped me figure out the plot much sooner than I should have or would have liked. There were some twists and turns throughout the story, I just wasn’t all that moved by them.

I think this novel will be much more suited to and appreciated by theater people. While I can certainly enjoy a good play, and could recognize the many theater references, I can’t say I understood them all. Seriously, there are a ton of theater references here! The writing and dialogue is quick and witty, if often cynical, and there is a dramatic quality to Vivian’s unreliable narration, which is fitting considering the themes, but took some getting used to for me.
Over all this was a quick read. I realize I’m always complaining about incomplete endings, and everything is very thoroughly explained in the end here. While that is a plus for me, this overall was a 3/5 stars.

I think this will be a great read for anyone who loves theater, unreliable narrators and unique thriller plot lines. The plot was pretty inventive, if a bit predictable. Anyone who can lose themselves to a good stage performance or those who have struggled with mental health issues similar to Vivian’s should be able to connect to her character on some level.

Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski
Narrated by Laura Benanti

Vivian Parry and her mother had a wonderful relationship and when Vivian lost her mother she also lost herself, so much so that she was hospitalized for a while. Now she is a successful theater critic who is so dependent on drugs, pills, and unhealthy relationships (some lasting minutes), that she is often using all three of those at the same time to numb herself so she can keep going. Only someone who is as unhealthy and broken as Vivian would put herself through everything she goes through in this story.

For a person who does a lot of "people pleasing" her alter ego come out in her scathing theater reviews. And really, Vivian isn't really people pleasing, she is usually just trying to get people to leave her alone, to allow her to be unnoticed, to forget her existence if they even do remember her. This story has some really caring characters, most of them damaged in their own ways, but still, this is not a story where I couldn't find anyone to like or care about. But Vivian is an unreliable narrator for the simple reason that she is always reaching for something or somebody to numb the pain and when she can't numb the pain, anxiety attacks just might do the job for her. Not only could I not always believe what she was seeing and experiencing, Vivian doubts herself.

Vivian is already a mess when the story starts. Then she finds herself in a bigger mess and instead of backing off she makes things worse. She may be digging a hole in her life that will take her in the wrong direction but she doesn't care, she is already the worst thing that can happen to herself. So off she goes, making things worse, literally and figuratively begging people to hurt her. This story is very dark but it is also funny, Vivian is funny.

Normally I don't like this kind of main character but this story caught my attention at the beginning and didn't let go. Laura Benanti narrates the story and she is fantastic with the huge cast of characters. There are not many narrators that can give such a large cast so much distinctive life. At the end of the audiobook, the author and the narrator have a long chat and it is very interesting. Because I listen to so many audiobooks, I like to know about the various narrators I hear and it was a delight to hear these two chat, asking and answering each others questions, and discussing this book and the characters.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, Flatiron Books, and NetGalley for this ARC.

I can certainly say that this is NOT what I was expecting from this book - it was quite a whirlwind to say the least. This psychological thriller is very dark and unique and is probably not for everyone, but overall I thought it was entertaining! The book follows Vivian, a theater critic with self-destructive tendencies, and her search for the truth after a man interviews her and goes missing immediately after, leaving her the last person to see him. I thought it was fascinating that the author was inspired to write this book when she actually was the last person to see a man who interviewed her. Overall, this audiobook was pretty unhinged, but is probably a very exciting read for certain readers - for me it was not something I’d reread, but I would recommend it to certain readers!

I received a complimentary ARC of this audiobook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Brilliant! Alexis Soloski has a way with words. Such a well written book. This story was dark and unique and I will remember this book among the many I will read this year. The main character is wonderfully complicated with a dark, dry sense of humor. I actually laughed out loud on several occasions. Laura Benanti is equally as talented and read this book like she actually was the main character. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!

This book was absolutely beautifully read. That’s probably in part due to the fact the narrator is a professional actress but I cannot imagine another voice reading as Vivian.

Vivian is a theater critic in New York City. As a former actress she knows the stage and can review all the parts of a performance.

Vivian agrees to an interview as she’s up for a promotion. When she sits down with her interviewee it’s more unsettling than comfortable. And then she turns out to be the last person to see him.

Vivian has a bit of a dark side, she’s a bit fragile but she is also witty and snarky, I really enjoyed her as a character. She made me laugh and with her bravery I never knew what she had planned. She drinks too much, takes pills like candy and keeps seeing her psychologist mainly in order to receive the prescriptions she wants. She knows what to say and what part to play.

Not a new favorite but a fine enough book. I can’t say I’ll remember much of this story down the line, but it was interesting and reading from the point of view of a theatre critic was fun! Audiobook narrator was very good as well.

This is the story of the unraveling of theater critic Vivian Parry. She has created an existence where she only feels whole in the dim light of the theater where she can escape into the world of the play. Here reviews are often scathing. When she agrees to a conversation with a graduate student she never expects that her carefully constructed life will go off the rails. The student, David Adler, disappears after the conversation and she is drawn in to try and figure out what happened to him. The more she learns the greater her fear becomes and she begins to question everything. What is real and what is the theater? Will she figure it out before it is too late?

The narrator was excellent.

Here in the Dark
Alexis Soloski
Pub: Flatiron Books
Pub date: Dec. 5, 2023
Format: Audiobook through NetGalley
4 /5

Huge thank you to NetGalley, Flatiron Books, and Soloski for allowing me to listen to an ARC!

For some odd reason, my next three reviews are all going to be about books with incredibly unreliable narrators who all have trauma that affects them in public and with relationships. Vivian, our MC, is no exception here. A theatre critic, and failed actress, Vivian has created many enemies throughout her career due to her harsh reviews of plays in New York. Vivian simply does not care about others feelings, and is so enwrapped in her own need to act that she was difficult to understand, and would not allow her true self to exist.

After her mother died during Vivian’s college career, she has not been the same, and she had given up her dream of acting. She suffers from dissociation, panic attacks, difficulty sleeping, and creating and maintaining relationships. Vivian is wrapped up in her false world she has created, and paired with her “I don’t care about other people” attitude, she was a fascinating main character. There were times when I had huge amounts of sympathy for her, and other times I just wanted to give up on her story due to her own self sabotaging. Soloski walked such a fine line with this character, and honestly she hit it out of the park. I have always been fascinated with unlikeable characters. It is the same reason I will watch trashy reality TV, because I just love watching absolute trainwrecks. Everything bad that happened to Vivian was frankly her own fault because she could not escape her own self importance.

This book was witty, hilarious, and absolutely insane at times. The side characters were also all fantastic and added so much to the story as they made their way around Vivian’s orbit. This book was a super quick read and left me with an absolute “what the hell are these people doing” feeling throughout the entire book, and especially at the end when the mystery that Vivian was investigating was brought to light. If you are a fan of unreliable narrators, strange cases, and the lives of those in the theater industry, this is a great book to pick up!

It was compelling enough, but one must suspend a tremendous amount of disbelief to make it to the end. Also, while the theater details/parallels drawn are probably really impressive and thoroughly researched, there seemed to be a lack of research into things like how police operate, what constitutes a crime, etc.