Robin’s Review of Where We’ve Made It Dark
Title: Where We’ve Made It Dark
Author: Nicholas Crawford
Genres: Monsters & Creatures Horror
Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
Literary Fiction
Source: Kindle, Paperback
Where We’ve Made It Dark
Imogen starts summer vacation to find her brother watching zombies on the news. Quips fly, but the catastrophe in Indonesia still rips the future from anything she loves. The world ends before undead reach her door, and what Imogen faces is unthinkable: to leave her family in the apocalypse.
Containment slowly fails, and in an emptied out San Francisco, people have left for the hills, for survivorships, anywhere but cities. By the time the East Coast’s plunged into extinction, SF’s left one of the last places for the undead to touch. But that still doesn’t mean its empty streets are safe.”
Robin’s Review
Triggers: gore, violence, family separation, apocalypse despair, zombies (obviously), moral collapse.
What Did I Just Walk Into?
Imogen thought summer break meant iced lattes and sibling snark. Instead: Indonesia goes full undead, containment fails, and by the time San Francisco empties out, the only thing on the menu is boba and moral decay. Forget coming of age—there’s nothing left to come of age to.
Here’s What Slapped:
Zombie apocalypse backdrop, but the real horror = people being people (read: terrible).
San Francisco as a husk: eerie, desolate, unnervingly believable.
Imogen’s POV hits like a gut punch and her desire to hold onto family, identity, anything makes her painfully human.
Tech bros-turned-scavengers with boba runs = chef’s nightmare.
Bleak, raw, and philosophical: this is more “existential trauma lit” than “shoot ‘em in the head and move on.”
What Could’ve Been Better:
506 pages is a long time to wallow in despair. You might need a support group when you finish.
Some pacing dips where the existential musings outweigh the actual plot movement.
A few characters felt more like philosophical mouthpieces than people you’d cry over if eaten alive.
Perfect for Readers Who Love:
The Road but with zombies
Philosophical apocalypse lit (if Sartre wrote The Walking Dead)
San Francisco dystopias with unsettling realism
Watching humanity unravel one latte at a time
Reviewed by Robin for Robin’s Review
Walk With Me Into the Dark
