A Neon Darkness (The Bright Sessions Book 2)

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Like I said before, what really affected and touched me in this book was the characters. I will never get over how much of a grey character Damien is and how complex and multi-layered. For those who are not aware, Damien has the ability to make people around him want the same thing he does and manipulate them that way. That sounds pretty cool right? For the user itself that is. But you actually see how much it has actually ruined him, how it has affected him and his view of the world since he can’t control it (or doesn’t seem to be able to). You can’t help but sympathize with him. This book towards the end starts feeling much like a villain origin story only you are not even sure how to feel about Damien in the end. Throughout the story, there were so many times I understood how he felt, I thought that in his place I would had probably acted the same way. Subjects on morality are touched and it’s all so complicated that you don’t know how to feel in the end. As for the other characters, they are all so well written and it’s obvious that there has been a lot of thought put into them. Marley was definitely my favourite because I have a weak spot for tough looking guys that are actually big softies and basically the mom of the group. They were also diverse as hell and there were a few times when the issues of racism and sexism were touched.

No physical description of him is given in The Bright Sessions, however Lauren Shippen mentions in a blog post that he is the fifth tallest of the show's main cast. [4] LA seemed as good a place as any to hit up next on my haphazard tour of the western United States. Anything’s better than goddamned Nebraska. But, in another boneheaded move, I haven’t looked at a calendar in weeks, which means I’ve somehow timed it so that I’m driving into Los Angeles on the night of Halloween.

The Infinite Noise

I think where I struggled with the book was with the titular character of Neon. I don't think she's badly written - she, too, is very human and flawed, hypocritical and judgemental and yet also vibrant and charming. But it's difficult to understand how the reader is supposed to view her. I didn't find her very likeable, and this may absolutely be intentional, but when all the other characters think she's amazing, it's hard to know what the author intends. This could 100% be my own problem, however, and nothing at all in the author. I adored the other characters, though, and in general found them all to be very multi-dimensional. I’m thinking about just calling it a night, starting the process of finding a place to crash, when I glance across the street to see a bright red neon sign proclaiming BAR LUBITSCH. There’s a bored guy out front, smoking a cigarette, but otherwise the place looks a hell of a lot emptier than the street. Emptier and easier. Eventually I’ll have to sleep, but right now I just want to sit in something other than the driver’s seat. I take a deep breath and saunter across the street, plastering on my most innocuous “nothing to see here” face. Los Angeles, 2006. Eighteen-year-old Robert Gorham arrives in L.A. amid the desert heat and the soft buzz of neon. He came alone with one goal: he wants to see the ocean. And Robert always gets what he wants.

As a character, Robert’s arc is genuinely emotional. He sees himself as the protagonist of his story, but what he is really doing is transforming into Damien and becoming the antagonist. He wants to be a good person, but his actions are selfish and manipulative, wanting to be the group’s main focus. The more obsessive he becomes in wanting them all to stay and be together, the more Damien’s moral compass points to becoming the villain. I do love that Shippen doesn’t justify his actions or put reason to them in her writing. He is a character that is not presented as likable. But part of you still feels for him, especially when he does seek out therapy. He shows moments of wanting to change but takes no ownership of any of his actions. He just doesn’t change for the better. He gets darker. One thing is for sure as he leaves Los Angeles in the rear-view mirror, Robert is gone and buried. Damien is here to stay. I really, really disliked Robert from the start. At first I understood that he was struggling with his power (to make others want what he wants), and empathized a bit. It was an interesting twist to have a character who gets everything they want, but still isn’t happy. However, when it became clear that Robert’s arc wasn’t going anywhere, I was extremely disappointed. Neon, Indah, and the others just keep having the same “don’t use your powers on us” argument with him over and over, which eh would then ignore, and it got really tedious and repetitive. He's lonely, hurt and his past and power burden him, leaving him lost and unable to connect to anyone, his power both a blessing and a curse. His desire to belong and be part of something is absolutely understandable and he's a grey character. A Neon Darkness could, in fact, have been a home run, but for one of its villains, Isiah, who is present here only as a plot device, shoehorned in here and there to move the plot in a desired direction. It’s clunky, sometimes almost preposterous, how this (admittedly frightening) mystery man appears, twirls his mustache, vanishes, and then, in the end, serves his real purpose - as the final line that must not be crossed. In such a carefully written, thoughtful work, Isiah is an real oddity, both in how shallow and predictable he’s presented to us, and in the square-peg ways he’s deployed.This book makes it so easy to hate Damien. He is constantly messing up, which can be understandable, but he's refusal to learn and get better is so infuriating. Part of this is definitely because he's a white cis male and has privilege up the ass. Another part of it is his power and how it lets him use whoever he wants. I loved the friend group Damien was surrounded by, they were such an amazing group of people. I really hope we see more of them either in the podcast or in later installments of this series. This is how a villain is born !!! El personaje de Damien me frustra y encanta simultáneamente y conocer su pasado???? Beautiful, gracias Lauren por eso. The characters that Shippen introduces us to are Indah, a bartender with an interesting sense; Neon, who is very electric; Marley, that can see into the past; and Blaze, the kidnapped friend that makes fire. The way they are introduced and the few things we learn, you cannot help but want to know more about them. When it comes to plot, there is admittedly not much of that. I consider this book to be more of a character study but I’ll get to that later. Whatever there is of a plot is simple and easy to follow with hints of what the universe of the Bright Sessions is about. Even if you are not familiar with it though, you can still be engaged by the story. The atypicals in this book are called by the main characters as unusuals. Much like a reader who has no idea what’s going on with the special powers these people have, the protagonist thinks he is alone in this and that there are not others like him but soon discovers that he is in an X-Men sort of world and what we see in this book is only scratching the surface of that. It’s interesting enough to keep the pace up and keep you going non stop. I think on some level this book was also a love letter to LA. I very much do not care about big city life at all, and I guess that’s why the first third of the book had some weird pacing for me.