Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe - OPTIONAL

Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe, 512 pages. HarperTeen, 2022. $19.

Language: R (96 swears, 26 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG13

BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

Sayers is a junior who doesn’t have to care about anything because of his name and the money his family has. He does what he wants and goes with the flow, even when he doesn’t agree with his friends. And then Sayers ends up in a situation where he can’t leave the strange house he wakes up in, saying his own name is punished, and the man there doesn’t care about his money.

At first, I was disappointed with Sayer’s choices, especially when he changed from doing nothing to helping facilitate his friends’ bullying behavior. Then he gets taken and all of his choices are stripped away, changing both his story and his character drastically. Watching Sayers morph through the different phases of his story was both tragic and heartening – despite all his dark times, Sayers finds light.

Sayers is depicted as white on the cover, and most other characters are implied white. That mature content rating is for underage drinking, drug abuse, innuendo, partial nudity, illegal activity, mention of sex and rape, harassment, and sexual assault. The violence rating is for gun use, mention of murder, and suicide.

Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

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