I typically never DNF Advance Reader Copies (ARCs), but this particular one presented a challenge. It took me a full week to finish listening to the audiobook. Despite not being a fan of reality TV, the storyline seemed intriguing.

Six glamorous and dramatic contestants land on a desert island to film a reality show, trying to win over millions of viewers. However, when one of them is murdered on camera, the remaining five must face the consequences. With no one willing to talk and the whole world watching, secrets come to light as they try to uncover who killed Rhys Sutton.

The narrator did an excellent job of keeping me interested, although I found it hard to connect with the characters. Perhaps that was intentional on the author's part. The format of the audiobook made it somewhat challenging to follow at times, so having the physical book as a reference would have been helpful.

Overall, the book had some moments where the writing felt lacking, and the challenges seemed too easy for the high stakes involved. The detectives and Internet aspects at the end of chapters felt rushed and confusing. However, the story was still enjoyable and engaging, with deeply flawed characters that showcased the dangers of fame.

Thank you NetGalley and Tantor Audio for audiobook ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This story is a great concept, who doesn’t love a celeb reality show that ends with a murder? We have several interesting characters in this Big Brother type island setting where there is flirting and hook ups but also fighting. They are all competing to when a big sum of money and you would think they don’t need it but each has a secret which is why they need the money. I feel like everyone played each other all throughout. I do wish we had just a bit more in the ending.

I absolutely do not like reality tv but I liked the plot for this book! Reality TV with Multi POV’s, Whodunit and Morally gray characters. It keeps you guessing through the book! The author did an amazing job!

All I can say is that I would 100x prefer to watch a reality tv show than to read about it. The best part of the book for me was the realistic toxic relationship aspects.

Thanks NetGalley for an advance audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

What is the publishing world coming to?
This was absolutely horrible.
No. Just Bad.

Note to Authors: STOP WRITING REALITY SHOWS in books. In case you didn't know I would say readers are not big TV show watchers....we spend our free time READING and NOT watching TV. Hmm....you think there may be a reason for that?

Rant Aside. Wow, I am trying to pull out ANYTHING positive. * Crickets *

The writing was incredibly choppy and so hard to follow. The story was interuppted with confessionals and #threads of the viewers. I never could fall into a rythem. The book read in the most confusing way and ended up being utterly pointless.

Fitzgeralds just sticks 6 very unlikeable characters together on a reality show with varying levels of stupidity and sets up situations and challenges that are so dull. How many times in books do we have to see the characters play Never Have I Ever or 2 Truths and A Lie or Truth or Dare (Correct me if I am wrong, I have not played that since I was in the backseat of my parents stationwagon sitting in traffic on I-95 headed down to the beach when I was in 6th grade as a last ditch effort for entertainment because my "Non Skip Cd Player" died and I couldn't rock out to my NOW that's what I call Music 14 CD)
These "games" allow us to further hate the characters because we find out they are liars, cheaters, have weird sexual relationships, abuse drugs/alcohol and are or have been sexual predators.

Boring.

I just couldn't stand all the "Bi" characters and the constant sleeping around with one another. I will say the one saving grace was one of the characters actually did point out she should get tested for STIs because of all the swapping.

This book may be the reason I never pick up another book that is set on a Reality TV Show, in fear that it will conjure up a memory of this book.

Terrible.

Can we bring back morals in books?

MARGBA-Make America Read Good Books Again--Is that a thing??

haha okay clearly I am sleep deprived and this review needs to end.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review and read this advanced copy of Then Things Went Dark. I was not influenced or paid for this review.

This is a pretty entertaining thriller, and I basically got what I was expecting from it. I just couldn’t find a character that I liked, so I was less invested in the outcome. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Then things went dark is a drama about a reality tv show gone bad.
6 celebrities are on an island competing for attention and prize money. Most of them have dwindling careers, and are taking full advantage of the limelight of the show. When two of the characters dive into a relationship together, the drama escalates more then anyone saw coming.
This book was interesting and different. I like the reality tv vibes of this books, and it kept my attention.
Some parts of it felt repetitive, but it’s based on the circulating drama of 6 people stuck on an island together, so what can you expect.
All in all I enjoyed it.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

I love this trend of thrillers that take place on the set of a reality show! This one is very well done, and towards the end I could not stop listening because I wanted to find out what really happened and how it would all end. The story finds 6 celebrities deposited on a remote island for a month, to compete for a cash prize in a streaming reality show called “Iconic.” The ending was a bit anticlimactic, and I found that the transitions between timelines were not always made clear (at least, not in the audiobook version) so it was often hard to understand which character was the focus at that moment. But it is an exciting story filled with fairly unsavory characters—the kind that readers will love to hate! Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this engaging audiobook.

This was a tough one for me.

Although I thought the storyline was engaging, I think this book is more suited to a physical format than an audiobook. There were a number of points where people were making onine comments about the reality TV show in the book and the narration was full of hashtags and "@" signs - it just didn't translate well into an audiobook.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I really wanted to love this one. It sounded perfect. But I felt like it fell a little short. 6 well know "celebrities" are on competing for half a million dollars. How far will they go to win?!

DNF’d this book at 31%. I did not care for one single character. The reality tv show trope is interesting but this was too convoluted with too many characters and complicated back stories for me to follow.

However, as always, I am sincerely thankful to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

What a fun concept of a book! The reality tv show theme books are really in right now and I am loving them. I think this one for me personally would be better reading cd audio. I think a multi cast would really set this audio up for an even more interactive read of the story. I personally found it hard to keep track of all the characters with just one narrator.

The story and concept was so fun and entertaining and kept me engaged to want to know who done it.
The audio narration was done by Zura Johnson and it was great! I just think this book needs a multicast narration to follow all the drama and characters.

It took me a while to get into the format of the audio. I think this would be better as a novel; the screenplay aspect of the audio made it confusing to keep track of the timeline between taping and airing.

Out now! Big thanks to the publisher for the early copy to read and review <3

I thought this was very well narrated, especially with all the different characters accents.

I thought this was a big hot mess, train wreck, and I couldn't get enough. From time to time you (read: me) just need some mind-numbing, trashy reality TV and that's what we get here. Six contestants are sent to an island for a competition reality series. These characters all have secrets, big issues and WOW are they self-centered. Like I already said - this was a hot mess. I have some reasons below for why this is a 3.5 star for me and not a 4 but overall, I liked this and couldn't get enough! My biggest reason to binge so fast was to see if Araminta ever got her head out of her a** regarding her relationship with Rhys. (insert major eye roll). I also like that there is enough doubt on each character that we truly could see a reason for ANY of them doing the thing.

3.5 stars (not 4) because:
1. the police investigation felt lacking, like they were really just interviewing the contestants/ suspects and they know everyone is lying to their faces but there's never any description of any investigative work. I guesssss that is due to the crime happening when literally no one else was around and the lack of evidence available? Idk, just felt like those parts could have been more fleshed out (or, dare I say, even left out).
2. we don't get any resolution for all the characters issues/ lives/ situations. Not a huge deal but the entire book lays out all these stories and situations they are all dealing with in regular degular life then we get zero info as to what happens after the show.
3/ Side note: I don't understand why there was an extra storyline thrown in for the cops. That felt super unnecessary and distracted from their "investigation".

This was an incredibly long book for nothing to happen.

The cover art drew me in, along with the premise of a game show à la Love Island but for "iconic" influencers/celebrities.

I was bored listening to the audiobook. The characters were (intentionally) unlikeable, but even with the drama amongst the group of 6 contestants, I didn't find myself to be all that interested in what was happening. It could've been way shorter with the same conclusion.

Six celebrities are competing to see who is the most “iconic”. But what does it mean to be iconic? The viewers will determine this through the challenges/ points earned during 24/7 camera footage on an 18 episode TV show. If you enjoy reality tv, this is like binge watching a season of celebrity Big Brother. There isn’t much of a plot, it’s more of a social experiment / competition. How will each player perform in challenges and what impact of being confined to an island with 6 other competitors do to their social game?!

There is a layer of mystery when you quickly learn one of the players dies before making it off the island. There’s an element of who-dun it, but there aren’t many shocking details or twists. The narration goes between what characters experience on island, future investigator interviews, and social media posts. When listening in audio, the switch isn’t clearly indicated- so make note to listen for it.

Overall, it’s a good reality drama and fun to imagine the storyline. The ending tied up nicely. It felt like there could have been more, but in the staying true to “reality tv”, cringeworthy, catchy and mindless drama- it follows the vibe.

Thank you NetGalley and Tantor Audio
for an advanced reader copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
Releases on Aug 27, 2024.

This seems to be a popular premise lately and I am here for it! Love me some reality TV and it’s just as good in book form, normally. This one however did not do it for me. It was boring at best. There was no big climactic reveal, no true twists. Just fell flat. I skipped through like 35% percent of the book because it was DRAGGING.

The 2 stars however were for the narrator! She was GREAT. You could tell who was talking by her accents or her tone of voice. She made it very easy to follow.

I think this was a decently written book with a very "now" premise that may, or may not, age well; along with characters that ranged from irritating to in my mind is just obnoxious to get attention. And I think knowing it was a reality TV show should have warned me that this would have been filled with characters that I would not like or trust. So, I think it is well written for the type of individual that would be cast in that "show" and how something like that would happen. I think why I give this 3-3.5 stars is it was, as weird as it sounds, too much-yet not enough for me at the same time.

There were parts of the book that seemed to just drag on for such a long time where nothing significant seemed to take place (which could just be me) and then there would be a burst of holy crap that part was very important, every single person was involved, and I have to remember who has been doing what for the last hour in the book! And it is also difficult, honestly, when we don't like the characters, it is difficult for me to judge the book. So that should mean that the book is well written, if I don't like characters I should disklike. But I also have to enjoy the plot, the story, and the intentionality of all of woven together makes for the excellent book for me. That is why this gets a 3.5 ⭐⭐⭐ for me.

I don’t think this book was for me. I don’t mind an unlikable MC but to enjoy this book you have to like a lot of unpleasant people. I wasn’t expecting a reality tv show book to have only mother Theresa’s but the volume of unpleasant people made it impossible for me to have an enjoyable reading experience. I wanted everyone to die which I am sad about. There should be someone to care about and root for.

This was a fun who done it mystery! I listened to the audio book and enjoyed it! The narrators were perfect.

I do feel like it did drag on just a bit too much towards the end, but it did keep me guessing til the very end.

I love a good book with characters that you become emotionally attached to. There were times where I liked certain characters & thought they were relatable, then times where despised them.

I definitely recommend giving this a quick read. Better yet, check out the audiobook!