Week 24 Review: The Brightness Between Us

From Goodreads:

In this sequel to The Darkness Outside Us, a Stonewall Honor Book, New York Times bestselling author Eliot Schrefer delivers another ambitious, genre-bending novel and epic love story that spans thousands of years and the far reaches of the galaxy.

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.

More than thirty thousand years in the past, Ambrose wakes on Earth to find that his mission to save his sister was a ruse. His mother betrayed him, and the truth of her plan—to send twenty clones of him to continue human civilization thousands of light-years away—sets Ambrose spiraling. When he discovers that another spacefarer is suffering his same fate, he will have to decide whether to risk crossing a world at war to reach him.

Separated by time and space, a young family and two strangers learn that their lives are intimately intertwined. They race to uncover the unexpected connections that might save them all . . . and perhaps humanity as well.

My Review:
I loved reading this book! I really enjoyed the first book, and I was fine with it staying a stand alone, but now that it's a series, I had to read it! To know what happened after on Minerva, as they're starting to build a civilization on an alien planet, while also getting the original Ambrose and Kodiak's story on earth? I had to read it! 

It was really interesting, seeing Kodiak and Ambrose as parents. The 4 of them are a family, and probably the only living humans. I really enjoyed seeing their dynamics, when only 2 of the 7 embryos that they had grown have actually survived to this point, making the two kids pretty protected, even if they haven't done much exploring of their world, since they've been focused on survival. 

The way this story is told, in sections, between Owl and Yarrow in the future, and then Ambrose and Kodiak in the past, was wonderful. We were introduced to where these characters where, and get invested, and then we would switch which time we were in, I think all of the switches between parts all switched if it was the past or the future. 

From the ending of the first book, we know that there was a nuclear war pretty soon after the ship took off, so the chances of the original pair's lives having a happy ending was pretty small. But I'm glad that we got to read them, to know that even the originals found each other and love with each other. And how their story, of how they were lied about being sent on the voyage, and how their story plays a part in the future, loved how it came together! 

Loved reading this book and I can't wait to read more by Eliot Schrefer! 

Author: Eliot Schrefer 
Series: The Darkness Outside Us #2
Read: June 13th, 2024 
Source: Edelweiss 
Reason Why: Loved the first book, and it's a 2024 Dystopia Book, Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2024 Book and a WoW Book! 
Publisher: Harper Collins
Expected Publication: October 1st 2024

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars