This is a spoiler-free review!
TikTok has led me to places I never knew I would go, and after seeing about one hundred videos about this book, I knew I had to see it out for myself. With the way it is described, I thought it would rival Butcher & Blackbird and maybe Haunting Adeline in terms of being dark, but I was left wanting more and feeling slightly misled. Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed Aly and Josh's story, but even the tagline on the cover notes "The couple that slays together, stays together," and yet there was not a ton of slaying at all throughout the entire book. This leans more towards a stalker romance with BDSM elements, but I would not call it a dark romance in true form.
I was not in love with the first person perspective - it is never my first choice, but Aly's inner dialogue felt underdeveloped and she was constantly referencing her "lizard brain" when she is a whole adult woman. However, her character as a whole was pretty entertaining to read, and while she does make some choices I was not pleased with, she added the "quirky" aspect to her and Josh's relationship. She was so real for spending hours on TikTok watching and favoriting the thirst trap videos because girl... same. Aly must have a horror kink because this girl is horny about twenty-four hours a day, and she literally does not care how dangerous the situation is.
The second Aly thinks she knows who her stalker is, she starts tracking him, and when she realizes that he is hot, she literally celebrates. This reminded me so much of Haunting Adeline, and I just know her and Addie would be friends. Her self preservation goes out the window and across the yard at nearly every scenario - going into a room alone with a known rapist... girl, get out of there!!
Josh is hands-down one of the funniest stalkers - compared to Aly's inner dialogue, I found his much more enjoyable and humorous. I did not love his Batman voice and references, and I thought he would be more dangerous throughout the book - it felt like Aly was more prepared to commit crimes than he was even though he is a literal stalker. Based off of the summary, I was under the impression they would be killing or committing crimes a lot earlier in the story, but it really was not towards over halfway into the book. Together, they literally commit one crime together and it was not even that exciting.
The scariest part of this book is that Aly said they were not going to have any safe words, and when she told Josh that he could do anything he wanted to her, his first thought was knife play. Like let's be so serious right now, this probably would have sent her spiraling. Their spicy scenes were pretty good, but I would have preferred them more spaced out rather than being somewhat lumped together in the second half of the book.
The epilogue was a fun way to wrap up their story, and I would have loved to see more chapters like that in the actual book. Josh was a fun male lead, but he could have been a little more wild, especially compared to other stalker romances out there. If you are looking for a tame introduction to stalker romances or dark romances in general, Lights Out definitely provides the gateway.
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