Rebel Town Reviews [OPEN]

In the Midst of Darkness (Part Two) - @SoaringBibliophile

In The Midst of Darkness (Part Two: A Moment - Chapters Yellow, Black, and White) by SoaringBibliophile

Reviewed by ESHurricane

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Overview

In The Midst Of Darkness is a collection of short stories centered around women overcoming hardship. This review centers around the second story—A Moment—which tells the story of Gwyneth. She is a powerful, confident and focused woman, and then all of that crumbles down when she is sexually assaulted.

*Warning: This short story contains a pretty graphic depiction of rape and its aftermath and I will be mentioning it throughout this review.*

Cover/Title

The title of this collection is very fitting for the subject matter, as the tales are of women facing darkness. The cover is haunting, the silhouette of a tortured looking woman with just a line of light across her face. There's this feel of utter desolation on her face, and the fact that she's shrouded in shadow not only goes with the title but the overall feel of the book.

The placement of the words and the font are nice and minimalist, gives a muted feel that doesn't overtake the imagery. Well designed!

Summary/Description

I'm not usually into lengthy summaries, but this one touches on some important issues. The author digs deep into how women have been treated throughout history and muses over whether or not it's really changed today. It raises some important questions and definitely made me want to open the book. I knew right away that it was going to be an uncomfortable read, but the message is clear and important. If a little bit of discomfort allows me to support a book that could change perspectives, then so be it!

Grammar/Structure

The spelling and punctuation is excellent here, the attention to detail evident in the editing of this book.

I did notice a bit of passive voice, such as she was thrown onto the bed. This could be more active with they threw her onto the bed. Another example would be His body was thrown atop hers could be modified to He threw his body atop hers. The actions happening as opposed to was happening reads a bit more active and keeps me in time with the actions.

I noticed quite a few filter words which is an easy fix when editing. It's difficult to avoid falling into the trap of filters, especially in intense scenes when one wants to be clear which sense the character is experiencing things from. But I find it actually distances me from the character because if something is written as happening, I assume that the character has felt or heard it.

For example, she felt fear creep up her spine could be modified to fear crept up her spine. If it's creeping up her spine then I know for sure that she's feeling it, so it's not necessary to tell me. And I find it a lot more visceral that 'fear' is the instigator in that sentence. Another example is she heard another zipper could be the sound of another zipper. If it's happening so close to her then it's implied that she heard it. I feel like in the intensity of that situation that simply describing the sounds and feelings without filtering it through her senses makes it that much more personal to me as the reader.

Characters

Right out of the gate, I automatically liked Faith because I found her very relatable. She's young, wants to get laid, and then gets sloppy drunk and wants ice cream instead. She's everything that I was when I was college age, and I'd be willing to bet a lot of readers can relate to her too.

Gwyneth I wasn't sure about right away, because she came off too perfect to me at first. She's beautiful, she's good at dancing, all the guys want her, she's got a high tolerance for alcohol so she can take care of her sloppy friend (and drive!) after the club. I felt very distanced from her because of this. When she tripped over herself because of Daniel it endeared her a bit to me because it was nice to finally see a flaw. (Also I really like that she's sexually experienced, it's so refreshing in a female MC. The college aged virgin cliché is so overused and so damaging with its 'women are automatically dirty if they aren't pure' message... but that's a whole other thing that I won't get into here, lol!)

However, re: Gwyneth's perfection... I feel like it made it such a huge contrast when she's so broken afterwards. It hammered home that message that no matter how perfect, how amazing, these things can happen to anyone and can just pull the life out of anyone.

Narrative

The narrative is spot on. With Gwyneth's blog posts and the cadence of the prose, I had to read the chapters multiple times because of the poetry of it! Especially in chapter two, the words just flowed like a black river and I was caught up in the swell. The imagery was so intense, I could feel her discomfort, paranoia and pain. One piece that really stuck out to me was the scrape of a monster to describe the feeling of her abuser's hands. It made me shudder in disgust, truly.

Plot/Pacing

So I've only read three chapters and am not sure how long the story will be, or how many chapters, or exactly where it is going to go. So take my suggestions here with a grain of salt because I'm just going off what's happened so far.

My main criticism with the plot is that I think the author could trim a lot. The main purpose of the story is to show this woman getting over a horrific experience, and I feel that there's just so much before it that doesn't really need to be there. I understand wanting to show the friendship between her and Faith for some context with Mason, and the budding relationship with Daniel to give some extra tragedy to the situation (and show how he can be understanding and help her through this later hopefully).

That being said, however, a lot of it falls a bit flat. The writing really blossomed for me in chapter two, that blog post and Gwyneth's feelings and what it's like for her being shrouded in the darkness. It was visceral and brutal and made me want to offer her comfort and help. The first chapter just seemed to walk me through the motions of this character and random goings on during this night of her life. It could have easily started at her saying goodnight to Daniel and not being quite ready to invite him upstairs because of her feelings for him.

I feel that had the story begun with the blog post about her wonderful day, her getting dropped off by Daniel, and then addressing the fact that Mason is her best friend's brother, that the rape scene would still have had a ton of impact. Then I, as the reader, would be able to meet the people close to her as she tries to piece her life back together.

BUT, having not read the rest of the chapters, I'm not sure if any of the beginning is super relevant later, and it might be. So these suggestions could be totally off base because these scenes might be wholly necessary later in the story. And I am definitely looking forward to reading the rest of the chapters!

Closing Comments

Overall, this is a very powerful story, and I have to give props to the author for tackling some very serious and intense issues. She does it in a way that is raw and realistic without romanticizing it, which is so important in this day and age. It's a noble pursuit and it's also packaged in a beautiful box of mighty fine writing. Excellent work!