**REVIEW** Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts

Since the beginning of mankind, civilizations have fallen: the Romans, the Greeks, the Aztecs… and now us. Huge earthquakes rock the world. Cities are destroyed. But something even more awful is happening: An ancient evil has been unleashed, and it’s turning everyday people into hunters, killers, and crazies.
This is the world Mason, Aries, Clementine, and Michael are living in—or rather, trying to survive. Each is fleeing unspeakable horror, from murderous chaos to brutal natural disasters, and each is traveling the same road in a world gone mad.
Amid the throes of the apocalypse and clinging to love and meaning wherever it can be found, these four teens are on a journey into the heart of darkness—and to find each other and a place of safety.

  This book did not leave my hands from the first chapter on.  I mean I could seriously not even think about letting it out of my sight.  The end is here but it's not just the earthquakes that are taking down people, it's other people.  Regular people, the ones you grew up with.  Something inside is snapping and we are becoming the most dark and evil forms of ourselves.  The part of us that we ignore and hide away in our daily lives and it is dominating us and bringing an end to the human race as we know it.

  These men were liked.  They were served coffee and pie at the diner and helped out with the town festivities. - p. 31 Clementine

  Where do I begin with this one because I think that I could honestly carry on forever about it.  I believe I could turn around and pick it up again right now.  It's not that it was a light and fluffy read and truth be told it was the opposite in almost every way.  This was a dark and intense blow by blow of how 4 teens deal with the end of everything as we know it.  Loosing their loved ones, watching people be murdered and having to kill themselves just to survive!  Can you imagine trying to survive that and all the high intensity emotions you would feel?!  We know that civilizations have faded and disappeared but this is full self destruct mode and explained as the result of us being to globalized and too big.  The extent in which Jeyn Roberts explains the gruesome and terrifying events that the teens go through will actually place you there in the heat with them.  There were  times I felt my own adrenaline rising and my heart trying to beat out of my chest.

Closing her eyes meant seeing and imagining the bodies of both strangers and the people she loved.  Their screams echoed like a scratched record on an endless loop. -p. 160 Aries

  The characters in this book were just mind blowing.  They were real and the emotions that they felt were realistic.  Each person was so distinct to me and even now days later I think of them.  Not in the creepy way you are probably thinking but more in a "WOW" kind of way.  These aren't adults we are talking about but teens that are for the most part left alone and behind to protect themselves and find a way to rebuild it all.  Through the fear and moments of complete defeat these teens pull through.  We are not just talking the initial loss either, most of them loose people that they found on their journey as well.  You would think that this would make the loss easier but it doesn't soften the blow when another person is taken from them.  Yes that means that Jeyn bring in some characters that don't really have a true place but they have meaning to the book a a whole.

If he could get this one thing right, he might be able to put his guilt behind him. -p.280 Michael

 Now I may be a little biased but looking back on every page I marked and there is A LOT of them I tended to tag (post-it) more areas where Aries and Clementine were involved.  Micheal and Mason were interesting and has many moments that even made my jaw drop a little but the girls had so many moments that made me feel drawn to them more.  Neither one of the girls were anything alike though.  Clementine spends most of her journey solo having to sleep with one eye open so to speak and Aries gathers a group in which she is a major source of its strength.  Yes they do break down and have moments of weakness but faced with the end of the world and having lost basically everything that was near and dear to you wouldn't you loose it just a little bit?  To me their strength and ability to survive shines through because of their situations.  Aries keeps everyone together and tries to maintain some form of order while Clementine has to live daily with no one beside her, no one to help watch her back.  The guys go through both situations and deal with being in groups and being alone.  No matter how you look at it just to survive this apocalyptic world for as long as they have is amazing.

All he needed now was a good strong kick to the head and it would be over.  He would not close his eyes.  He'd face death head on. -p.334 Mason

  There is also this interesting little chapter here and there brought to us by Nothing.  There is no name, no who or what it is but it is there feeding us.  It's kind of the extra that gives you that feeling of crawling across you skin.  No it (he/she) doesn't threaten or do anything special really but more gives the truth.  Speaks what needs to be said and some things that don't.  I get a distinct feeling that the Nothing is actually a someone that we are reading about but it's hard to tell really.  There must be a reason behind the glimpses of what is inside and lurking in everyone.  I would like to call them Zombies and I guess the way their mind works can indicate that but when you look at the thought process it is beyond that of what a Zombie is known to have.  There is exceptions in every case though and whatever these people have become is not really human.  The Nothing makes it very clear to me that something beyond what we know has happened and will continue to happen.

We became evil because we deserve it, not because we lived our lives as saints.  The darkness can not go where the light holds warmth.  Sometimes it is easier to embrace the pain than fight against the fire.- p. 272 Nothing

  To call this a dystopian just wouldn't feel right to me.  Dystopian to me is where you are in the future and there has been some kind of established civilization.  Dark Inside is more about the now, the how and to me it's an apocalyptic novel.  This is the how not the now.  The nit and grit that people need to survive before they can even consider how they are going to rebuild everything.  This is how we loose everything we know and learn how to survive and truth be told at times it scares the heck out of me.  Aries, Clementine, Mason and Micheal all have what it takes to get through all of this hell but need more than themselves to be able to make it in general.  Even if they still know how to smile when all seems lost in this world.

"As long as I'm not forced to eat Spam and canned turnips I'll survive," she said.  "I don't get Spam.  What exactly is it?  Ham?  Lunch meat?  It's creepy."- p.227 Clementine 

I can tell you right now that I am all but begging to get my hands on Rage Within.  Jeyn Roberts has created a world that I am terrified of but become engrossed in within moments of hitting the pages.   With how attached I became to the characters, to the world that was created within the pages of this book it will be torture waiting for #2 (even if it does have the same birthday as me).  If you can handle the brutal honesty and some scenes where the true nature of humanity shines through pick this one up.  This is going on my favourites shelf and due to this I would pick up ANYTHING that Jeyn Roberts writes in the future!!