Character (5/5)
Plot & Pacing (5/5)
Setting & Surroundings (5/5)
Dialogue & Diction (5/5)
Craft & Voice (5/5)
Reading Experience (5/5)

Final Rating:
5/5

Comments:
I find myself occasionally writing in reviews that an author just didn’t know what kind of book they wanted to write, that they just threw a bunch of genres against the wall and left them all in the same book. This story, to an even greater degree than its predecessor, is a real genre-hopping odyssey, but the difference here, compared to those other books I mentioned, is that Eliot Schrefer knew exactly what he was doing. There’s no random experimentation to see what works. It ALL works. This almost felt like multiple books, an anthology of sorts, organized in a way that tells an irresistibly compelling narrative and, inexplicably, gets its readers all in their feels over a damn sheep at the end of the world. Schrefer packs action, urgency, political intrigue, emotional vulnerability, tenderness, family drama, the cosmic unknown, and sci-fi awesomeness into just a few hundred pages. I savored this story in a way I don’t usually get to experience sci-fi. These two books together are a collective masterpiece of emotional, smart, nuanced, and brilliant prose. I don’t like to use the word “transcendent” often, for fear of wading into trite cliches. But, truly, this was a transcendent reading experience. This is the kind of book that makes me less afraid of things like death and the unknown. Bravo!

Wow. This was one hell of a book!! When I read the first book (The Darkness Outside Us) earlier this year, it tore me apart and put me back together. I loved it and wanted to know more. But as far as I knew, there was no second book. Then I found out about The Brightness Between Us and immediately requested an ARC.

It’s so hard to give a spoiler-free review, but y’all know we’re spoiler free here. I absolutely LOVED seeing into the past and how it affected the present. The pacing, writing, the *tension* were all so delightful. This writer KNOWS how to make you feel all the feels, and you’ll thank him for it. I was on the edge of my seat, barely breathing or putting the book down, to know what happened next.

The sci-fi elements are so well thought out, which I know fans will appreciate and enjoy!

The Brightness Between Us is about creating a new life/path for yourself, found family, hope, doing what’s right, and so much more.

Highly recommend you read the first book before diving into this one– you won’t regret it.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for this eARC! Thank you to Eliot Schrefer for giving us more time with Ambrose and Kodiak, and to Moe for being my buddy read; I’m so glad I had you to keyboard smash about this book with🩵

I had mixed feelings going into this one.
This book failed in comparison to the first book. I think with the amount I enjoyed the first book this one seemed so unnecessary.

5 stars!

*NOTE: Some spoilers in this review for the FIRST BOOK only*

The Brightness Between Us is the sequel to the The Darkness Outside Us and it takes us both forward and backward in time where we catch up with the Ambrose and Kodiak clones and we meet their originals on earth. The clones are trying to raise some offspring, the originals are just finding out the truth about the rescue mission and they are reeling.

This had feeling ALL the emotions! SO well done. It's philosophical, but also suspenseful, it's sweet and romantic, but also a bit horrifying. At times I threw down the book in anger (metaphorically, because I was reading this on my computer) because of the pain that this author is willing to put us through as readers. But, in the end, it paid off. Loved it.

I enjoyed this but I just found myself missing the original timeline from the original book. I liked the idea of this, but I almost think that the story needed more time. The timelines wove together well but the second half could have used a bit more room to flourish. Overall, definitely a good sequel but I just didn't love it quite as much as the first book. I have to say I do love Ambrose and Kodiak, so I would really pick up anything with them in it, haha.

Summary: "Seventeen years have gone by since the Coordinated Endeavor crashed on a distant exoplanet. Ambrose Cusk and Kodiak Celius are now the devoted parents of two teenage children, Owl and Yarrow, in a hardscrabble frontier home. Though life on Minerva is full of danger, the family’s bond is enough to make it all worth it—until they learn that the biggest threat to their survival might come from within."

I was really looking forward to this sequel, and truth be told I did not love how the book was set up. I much preferred the "original Ambrose & Kodiak" timeline. But it was both enjoyable and stressful (in a good way) to see how they got to the "present".

While I did not love this book as much as the first, I did love getting more background and time with Ambrose and Kodiak.

Thank you NetGalley for my copy :) #TheBrightnessBetweenUs #NetGalley

Great follow up to The Darkness Outside Us! I loved Ambrose & Kodiak (now Father & Dad), but I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into the sequel. I think this was a good mix of the new family unit they have created and flashbacks of the original Ambrose & Kodiak. The two timelines tie together nicely, but I do wish the story was a little longer. I felt like the second half was a little rushed, but still enjoyable.

Overall, I think Eliot Schrefer has a talent for writing characters exploring their relationships, identity and morality while beautifully blending them into a technology advanced futuristic dystopian world.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Reading a sequel to a book I loved is always a risk, but I was so excited to continue reading about Ambrose and Kodiak. Did I love this book as much as the first? No. Did I enjoy it and continue thinking about it after putting it down? Totally. In this dual timeline, the plot of the original Ambrose and Kodiak shined. I enjoyed seeing them deal with the immediate aftermath of learning that clones of themselves would be sent to colonize a new planet. I liked seeing Ambrose in his casual fling stage and seeing how Kodiak would react to Ambrose under very different circumstances than their fake mission confinement. They did not disappoint. We get to see less of the clones Ambrose and Kodiak since the other timeline is told by their two children, but it makes my heart happy to know that this pair is still together 18 years after crash landing on Minerva. Their children Owl and Yarrow don’t get a lot of character development or plot as their problems on Minerva link back to events in the original Earth timeline and lead us back to Ambrose and Kodiak. But let’s be real, I’m here for that ship over and over again, so I still enjoyed this book a lot.

4.5/5
Eliot Schrefer has done it again and had me scared for my life reading another book. I even told myself: "listen... the first book remember how it completely shocked you and then malfunctioned your brain??" I said yes I do remember and I will be ready for it this time. Diary, I was not ready.

I am writing this review very carefully. Because the first book has one of the most perfect and shocking..discoveries that I don't want to accidentally spoil any of that in here. This will be a spoiler free review (*stares sadly at the quotes I highlighted*).

We are back in the world of Ambrose and Kodiak except some years have passed (I fell to my knees when I saw the cover look at that glow up *cry emoji*). Their love has blossomed beautifully and it was incredible seeing how they have both grown with their relationship and with their own selves. Also we get a Kodiak POV!!! Which if you have read the first you know it was all in Ambrose's POV so it had me fan-girling to finally be in Kodiak's head and yes the dna test is back: he really does think about how pretty Ambrose is all the time.

Because of how things ended with their mission at the end of the first book we got a first glance into how they are surviving now. Eliot pulls you in with the dark reality of starting anew, the epitome of loneliness. Right when you have your footing in where the story could be going you are then thrust into a story taking place many years back. Humanity is cruel and emotions are high in here as you discover how Ambrose and Kodiak's lives were before the space mission to Titan.

The dominos suddenly are falling into place as you make connections from the first book. Wait. The dominos have a gun!!! And they are pointing it at you?! What is going on? Boom. Bam. You thought. (real ones will know the gun reference).

Listen I'm doing jumping jacks. I'm doing the macarena. Please read the first book, report back to me we will scream together and then read this one.

Release date is TOMORROW! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"We of all people should be disillusioned with humans."
"Yes, but I guess I've discovered that I'm not."

At this point I will read anything Eliot Schrefer writes. Fantastic give me 14 of them.

It should be noted that The Darkness Outside Us is one of my favorite reads of all time. When I talk about books that have left a lasting impact on me, that's near the top of the list. Of course I was thrilled to hear that Schrefer was writing a sequel, but there was so much pressure for it to live up to the first book that I was almost terrified to read it.

I shouldn't have been worried; The Brightness Between Us is every bit as haunting and beautiful as the first book, but in an entirely different and unpredictable way.

Years after the Endeavor carrying the clones of Ambrose Cusk and Kodiak Celius landed on the exoplanet Minerva, the pair has managed to carve out a hard-fought life for themselves and their two children, Owl and Yarrow. The planet is a largely unexplored mystery to them all, but time is ticking - a meteor could be heading for them at any moment. But there are other problems they face from within: a buried genetic bomb in the DNA thirty-thousand years in the making.
Meanwhile, in that past, Ambrose wakes up the day before he's set to launch into space on a rescue mission for his sister to discover it was all a lie. Spiraling and in a world on the verge of nuclear war, he goes out hunting for another spacefarer who shared his fate.

Read this book. If you enjoyed The Darkness Outside Us, this is a more than worthy successor. It is love and family and survival against all the odds in two very different but intertwined times - the story of how two men find each other again and again to save humanity from extinction. It's two typical teenagers in a very atypical environment. Ambrose and Kodiak are every bit as perfect as in the first book, and Owl and Yarrow are worthy additions to the story. I want to follow this little family and their hard-won survival forever.

4.5 stars

It's been seventeen years since the events in The Darkness Outside Us, and Ambrose and Kodiak now find themselves parents of two teenagers. Together, they all work to survive on the planet Minerva, until something threatens their safety. Meanwhile, thousands of years in the past, Ambrose wakes up to find that the mission he thought he was going on is something totally different. And he decides that he's going to do something about it.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for an advanced copy of The Brightness Between Us by Eliot Schrefer to review! When I heard there was going to be a sequel to The Darkness Outside Us, I knew I had to read it. That book has one of the best plot twists I've ever seen, so I couldn't wait to see where Schrefer went with the sequel. It definitely doesn't disappoint!

Told in alternating timelines, we get to see the time leading up to Ambrose and Kodiak's original mission, as well as what happens in the future. It all connects by the end, in way that gives you a bigger picture of the entire situation. Swtiching between narrators and time periods adds to the overall suspense of the plot, and it was difficult to put down by the end. Not necessarily any major plot twists like the first one, but still an intricate plot that will keep you on your toes.

In addition to the plot, the characters are well rounded and have distinct voices. Ambrose and Kodiak we technically already know, but Schrefer introduces some new characters that add insight to the whole situation. There's a lot of discussion about what aspects of humanity are deemed important in a survival situation like this, and it really speaks to the important of connection. What's the point of survival if you don't have that connection?

All in all, this is a fantastic follow-up that fans of the first book will definitely enjoy.

The Brightness Between Us is better than anything I could have possibly asked for in a sequel to The Darkness Within Us. I just finished reading it and I’m still a bit in awe. I relished all the new facets of Ambrose and Kodiak’s characters we get in this book. Owl and Yarrow are also fantastic additions as characters, and the way the stories weave together back and forth is perfection. The book is hopeful, devastating, surprising, thought provoking and romantic. I loved every minute of it. I can tell this book is going to stay with me long after I’ve finished it. The ending was completely satisfying, but if Eliot Schrefer some day decides write a 3rd novel in this world I will be first in line to read it!

This book broke me emotionally, but in an absolutely beautiful way that made me want to read this duology over and over again.

“The Brightness Between Us” is the follow up to Elliot Schaefer’s 2021 “The Darkness Outside Us.” With two timelines, the story follows the original Ambrose and Kodiak after learning that the mission they trained for is a lie, and the cloned Ambrose and Kodiak with their two teenaged children homesteading thousands of years in the future on the planet Minerva. Both stories deal with threats that endanger humanity’s survival.

I KNEW this book would rip my heart out of my chest (in a good way!!) and the story delivered. It is so deeply human. It’s more than just a story about a group of individuals, but all the threads that bind us together.

The Brightness Between Us by Eliot Schrefer. (Out October 1, 2024)

Wow just, wow. The Darkness Outside Us is one of my top reads for this year, so when I found out there was a sequel and that it was available to request an ARC for, you can imagine my excitement. If you haven’t read the first book yet I highly recommend trying to steer away from learning too much about this new story. So I’m going to try to keep this as spoiler-free as I can by focusing on the writing.

First of all, I need to have a serious talk with Schrefer because the amount of emotional rollercoasters I’ve gone through with these characters this year is astounding.

I am completely captivated by Shcrefer’s storytelling. I was continuously at the edge of my seat wanting to absorb every line, just like I was with the first book. The way the tension builds up, the pacing, the twists and turns, the ah-ha! moments, the oh-my-god that is hilarious and oh-my-god that is devastating moments… amazing. Both a sequel and a prequel, The Brightness Between Us is a very well thought out continuation of the first book. Told through multiple POVs and timelines, this story explores themes of survival, intimacy, moral dilemmas, love, identity, hope, and sacrifice.

Everything you want about the sci-fi, thriller, horror, romance genres is in this book. Five stars! (Wonder if there will be a third? Please?)

Note: I once again must protect Kodiak with all my being. ✨🧶🐑🪐

———
Thanks to HarperCollins for providing me with an eARC through NetGalley. And thanks to Eliot Schrefer, I cannot begin to explain how much I love these two books and how much they mean to me. I have no words right now. And thanks to Gem for doing this buddy read with me and listening to me scream.

This was one of my most anticipated reads for 2024 and it did NOT disappoint! I loved The Darkness Outside Us. It is, to this day, still one of the weirdest, most gut-wrenching stories I have ever experienced. Set in a Sci-fi world on the brink of collapse, Ambrose and Kodiak are the final hopes for humanity, except they never agreed to be so. Tricked into being cloned and shipped into space to spend the next tens of thousands of years being used and then disposed of. This story paints a bitter portrait of the lengths of human greed. It is unfortunate that the world we witness in The Darkness Outside Us is not very difficult to imagine.

Now, on the settled planet of Minerva, Ambrose and Kodiak raise their two teenage children, Yarrow and Owl, with little knowledge of where they once came from. This story switches between each family member's perspectives, including both past and future Ambrose and Kodiak. This story had its heartbreaking moments, its twists and turns, and, as always, the gentle and persistent hope of humanity.

I fell in love with this family. It was incredible getting to see Ambrose and Kodiak again and seeing how they have grown. Eliot Schrefer nailed it with this sequel and I would gladly read more books following this family, though I am also satisfied with how The Brightness Between Us concluded. An easy 5 star read for me!

After reading the first book, I didn't think the story of Ambrose and Kodiak could get any better. It did!

This book flashes back to the original Ambrose and Kodiak and we learn what happened to them after they found out that they were not going on a rescue mission to Titian. These flashbacks are interspersed with POVs from Owl and Yarrow (Ambrose and Kodiak's children) on Minerva.

The writing is brilliant and kept me on the edge of my seat with a few twists and turns along the way to the ending. My heart ached for original Ambrose and Kodiak throughout the story - but it also still aches for clones Ambrose and Kodiak from the first story.

I don't want to give too much away or hide at any spoiler - because honestly if you like science fiction, you should read this book. If you like adventure, read this book. If you like romance, read this book -- but don't expect a lot of spice.

The Brightness Between Us takes us both seventeen years into the future from where we leave Kodiak and Ambrose at the end of The Darkness Outside Us and over thirty thousand years in the past to the Earthbound Ambrose and Kodiak. Frontier life on an alien planet with a fledgling family might not sound like it has a lot in common with two teenager boys navigating the fallout of being the center of a geopolitical slight of hand, but these two storylines separated by a near insurmountable amount of time and space are more tightly bound than Ambrose, Kodiak, Owl and Yarrow could ever imagine.

As deeply as I love Kodiak and Ambrose The Darkness Outside Us wasn’t a book that particularly screamed sequel, so while I was excited when The Brightness Between Us was announced I also tried to to temper my expectations. This worry ended up being entirely unfounded. The Darkness Outside Us is one of those books that you truly can only read for the first time once (and if you haven't, what are you doing reading this review? drop everything and pick it up now and come back later), and Eliot Schrefer is far more interested in taking you deep into the connective tissue between humanity, from those as loose as strangers to those as deep as family. Of course, that’s not to say the sequel is without plenty of its own twists and turns.

The heart of these books dig at what it means to be lonely, and in doing so spend a lot of time examining how humanity often anchors itself in community. Screfer took really good advantage of having multiple POVs to examine any flavor of loneliness you could imagine, from being surrounded by loving family but feeling unseen to having made the choice to remove yourself from everyone you have ever known just so you can live. The book opens on a mediation of something Ambrose said in the first book, that ”Intimacy is the only shield against insanity. Intimacy, not knowledge. Intimacy, not power.” and time and time again The Brightness Between Us hits you home with the strength of love and connection. It bangs that drum loud enough to transcend space.

Some of this book does feel like it’s going out of its way to address some of the most common criticisms from The Darkness Outside Us, and I think it ends up working as well as it does because of the clear amount of time Schrefer has put into building the three worlds of his books, Coordinated Endeavor, Earth in 2473, and Minerva, and there’s obviously so much more that doesn’t make it to the page. There’s good internal logic to what we are allowed to know. Fédération sounds so much more of a horrifying place than Ambrose seems to realize, but he’s one of the most privileged members of the country so of course he wouldn’t question it; not like Kodiak would have reason to, and since all Kodiak knows of living in Dimokratía is the life of an orphan funneled into the military, his lack of faith in any government to take care of its people is more than founded. I wanted more with everything to do with Minerva, but with only two of seven attempted children surviving into their teen years, of course staying close to home would have been prioritized over exploring. Yet again I have to watch Ambrose defend yet again what may be the most bizarre euphemisms for topping and bottoming I’ve ever encountered in my life. Some of the language is very young in a way that really does not match the tone the general story has going. More times than I’d like to count there was this beautiful section of prose that has to trip over a pretty juvenile phrase right before the end, emotionally nullifying most of what I read before. I understand that all of our POV characters are teenagers, and I’m not so removed from being a terrible ironic teen that I don’t remember it, but I don’t think that always needs to be dialed on. Some of that world building can also veer into very long infodumps that are kind of an inevitable hallmark of hard science fiction, which will turn some people off but I will forever be kind of charmed by them.

The connection that every version of Kodiak and Ambrose have nurtured between these two books so achingly tender. Like I dunno, I guess soulmates are real? I’ll find you in every universe and love you? What else could I do?

I need this book to be out today so I can buy the series for everyone I know. Eliot Schrefer cooked and I fear I’ll never be the same.

Thank you HarperCollins and NetGalley for the eARC.

4.5/5

A fantastic sequel! Far more than fan service, this book raises new questions, new evils and dives deeper into the motivations of humanity and colonization. As it started, I wasn't sure I wanted what I was reading, but it goes on to become so much more. The world building and writing are just as intriguing as the first novel, and while there is less swooning you still get a heavy dose. Definitely will be reading again and reccommending.

E-ARC generously provided by HarperCollins Children's Books in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much!

4.5 stars. Harrowing, a bit tragic, but ultimately about hope and humanity's ability to persevere in even the most unlikely of circumstances, The Brightness Between Us is a brilliant sequel to a sci-fi duology that I will absolutely be revisiting in the future.

So I went into this book not knowing there was a book 1. I will be reading that soon.

This book shook my soul, I was a mess of emotion during the entire thing. How is Eliot set up that he penned such a beautiful story?

Ambrose & Kodiak's story is amazing but Owl I believe is my favorite character. There is so much to this story, that a review would give away too much.

I can only strongly suggest that you grab this book and a glass of wine because coffee or tea is not good enough for such an elegant book.

Thank you Netgalley, HarperCollins, and Eliot Schrefer for this beautiful ARC. I have voluntarily given my honest opinion in this review.