Robin Roe

Dark Room Etiquette

Latitude Tamarind

Okay it’s been about three hours so I do finally feel qualified to think about this book. This book is intense, and very interesting, and very long. It’s 512 pages, and it absolutely does not feel like 512 pages — it feels like it’s 200 max, and I finished this book inside of four hours. (I’m also a VERY fast reader, so, there’s also that). And yet? I wish there was more? I need more information pre-trauma (I literally do not think Sayers had a personality pre-trauma, or if he did, it wasn’t a very strong personality, and also I could not keep his friends apart At All) and I need SO much more information post-trauma. It’s the aftermath! I need the ‘real’ information! The reader (me!) is left with questions still at the end! And yet it’s still really good! If this novel was a fanfiction, it would be hurt/comfort with emphasis on the hurt — I needed More Comfort at the end. I needed a newspaper article at the end that was like “these are the events that actually happened, not according to our unreliable narrator”. Also they never say “dark room etiquette” or really refer to the metaphor of the title, and I think it’s a really good metaphor/title so I’d really like to have that. But I AM still thinking about this book, so. Four and a half stars, rounded down for NetGalley/Goodreads.

Dark Room Etiquette

Reviews