Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts

For a book that starts out with so much action, I have a great admiration for Dark Inside. The chapters are narrated by four different characters, and they are all fleshed out people. You actually care about the characters and want them to survive.

We start out with an earthquake. It shakes something loose inside certain people. They snap, and they start murdering other human beings. Don't worry, this isn't any zombie infection. Nobody will eat you, they just want to bash in your skull or tear you apart, piece by piece.

Our four characters start out separate but end up in the same place. Mason was pulled out of school early because his mother was in a car accident. Soon after, someone set off a series of bombs and killed off his classmates. Aries was on a bus that overturned, killing her best friend and wounding most of the people inside. A mysterious stranger named Daniel helps her get to safety, but he seems to know more about what's going on than he should. Michael witnesses a case of road rage gone horribly wrong, then sees the police shoot the perpetrator. Clementine is attending a normal town meeting when some of the citizens show up with guns. Her mother makes her leave the room, right before these people she has known her whole life start to open fire on the crowd.

Dark Inside was full of action and suspense, though it was occasionally a little too graphic for my taste. Again, I enjoyed getting to know the characters instead of just having them shoved at me. It's also interesting to read about the parts of a post-apocalyptic type novel that you don't usually get. The characters don't have any electricity or running water, so they end up eating lots of junk food and they end up greasy and dirty. The author, Jeyn Roberts, has a degree in psychology, which seems interesting given the subject matter. Some chapters are narrated by Nothing, which seems to be humans who have changed. It might just be in my head, but I attribute the character development and the insights into "the enemy" to the author's psychology background. It all sounds like it comes from someone who knows people fairly well.

I received my copy of Dark Inside from Simon & Schuster Galley Grab. It's available now.