Thanks to Clarion B Excerpt from my review - originally published at Offbeat YA. DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on Edelweiss. Will appeal to: Those who like a book that colours outside the lines. WARNING! Themes of depression and suicide (the latter more on the page, though filtered through an absurdist lens). Cons: The surrealistic style might not work for everyone. Pros: Unique story that balances dark humour and teen angst and delivers a powerful message. If you want to tackle some serious topics like teen suicide/depression while also being able to be somewhat removed from the severity of all that, give this a go.moreĮxcerpt from my review - originally published at Offbeat YA. Honestly I think the reason I loved this a lot more than other chaos reads is that it has actual stakes and a ton of real-world applicable messages you can take from the chaos. CHAD01 tells you not to read yours but you do anyway and then suddenly the perspective shifts from you to Rainbow except you're also rainbow and throughout your quest through chaos-oz, the narrative intersplices Rainbows memories and the various attempts of a God/dess as she attempts to kill herself.ĭid that work? Do you understand? Still probably no? Simular boxes can also give you memories. You meet a guy named CHAD01 (the 0 is silent) who tells you you have to go on a quest together because a box told him so so you decide to do it. You're memoryless in the middle of a non-earth nowhere where you can't touch your pants, form the vowel sound of swearwords, or figure out how the hell you're supposed to pee because of the aforementioned lack of pant touching. I really enjoyed this so I'm going to try and articulate what I liked to you, but its honestly the kind of thing you have to read to understand. Rainbow in the Dark is kind of poetic portrayals of teen angst meets kindergarten humor meets the quest/found family trope meets a bizarre nonsense version of the wizard of oz and somehow I mean all of that in the best way possible. I've read over 500 books this year so please know when I say this was the most unique, that's a really, really big deal. I really enjoyed this Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of Rainbow in the Dark in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of Rainbow in the Dark in exchange for an honest review. I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley. I wouldn’t say that I felt the idea behind this was original with the comparisons guiding me but somehow the strange story did work and in the end I’d rate this one at three and a half stars. The world building was lacking and the story strange but bringing upon the other stories I actually did understand what the author was trying to do. The problem I came upon though was if I had not been referred to those books I probably would not have understood a thing going on in this story. Now I know sometimes comparisons are way off the mark but in this case I could see both in this strange fantasy. Rainbow in the Dark was compared to Ready Player One and The Wizard of Oz so of course being a big fan of each I had to check this one out. The pair must beat the game to find their portal home. Rainbow meets another teen, a guy who claims his name is CHAD01, and Chad 1 (the 0 is silent) explains what little he knows about the world they are trapped inside. Rainbow is a high school senior who has one day found herself trapped in a virtual game world.

I would warn readers that this one has a dark side to it tackling issues like teen depression and teen suicide in a fantasy world.

The pair must beat the game to Rainbow in the Dark by Sean McGinty is a young adult fantasy standalone novel. Rainbow in the Dark by Sean McGinty is a young adult fantasy standalone novel.

Rainbow in the dark