Book: This Safe Darkness by Alexis Maragold
Reviewed by Weird | weird.reads.books
Rating: 4/5
I’m someone who has to read dystopian fantasy in small doses, so when I pick one up, I need it to be good. This Safe Darkness absolutely delivered on that need for quality, blending elements of The Hunger Games and The Handmaid’s Tale into something that still feels uniquely its own.
This book immediately appealed to me for two major reasons:
The main female character is a divorcee in her 30s.
She has a chronic illness (migraines).
I love seeing heroes and heroines across different age ranges, but seeing someone closer to my own age genuinely piqued my interest. And as someone who lives with chronic migraines, I was especially curious to see how a flare-up would be portrayed and how it would impact the storyline.
Honestly, the migraine representation almost made me cry. Everyone’s experience is different, but those telltale signs of one coming on and knowing you’ll be debilitated for the rest of the day are hard to explain to people who think they’re “just headaches.” Dearest review reader, if I ever hear you dismiss migraines as that, I will haunt you. I hope you never have to experience the sensory overload that forces you into a dark, silent room, lying flat because the world is spinning, you’re nauseous, and everything is too bright and too loud. When they’re chronic, that can mean half your month is stolen by something you can’t fully control, no matter how careful you are.
I’m incredibly grateful for miracle drugs like Ubrelvy that work for me, but our FMC, Orelle, has no such privilege of modern medical access. Watching her navigate this world with that added vulnerability made her strength feel even more grounded and real.
The underground city of Caligo operates on a rigid tier hierarchy. The lower your tier, well… may the odds be ever in your favor. Orelle falls from the highest tier (once part of one of the most influential families) to the very bottom due to her divorce and infertility. In this society, a woman’s value is tied almost entirely to her ability to marry and bear children, which feels eerily reflective of certain ideological pushes we see even today. The lowest tier lives in the slums, survives on barely edible provisions, and is treated like society’s lepers.
Where the story leans into its Hunger Games parallels is the annual televised hunt. Each year, ten women are selected by lottery (the number of submissions increase by how old they are) to venture to the sunlit surface and hunt monsters known as “Sols.” Men, of course, are deemed too essential for this honorable privilege.
Orelle’s name is drawn, along with one of her roommates, to fight the Sol. Their already slim odds shift when Kalden, a foreigner from another city, steps forward and volunteers to join the hunt.
Kalden is our mysterious MMC, and yes, you will love him. What I appreciated most is that he doesn’t magically transform these women into elite fighters overnight. Instead, he teaches them realistic defensive strategies, acknowledging they don’t have the time or physical conditioning to become warriors in a matter of days. That attention to practicality made this feel more realistic.
The relationships in this book unfold beautifully. Watching connections grow under extreme pressure adds emotional weight to every interaction. I also thoroughly enjoy having a corrupt government to passionately hate, and this one delivers. The world-building is well balanced and never feels overwhelming, and the romance develops at a satisfying pace without rushing.
If you’re looking to start a new dystopian romantasy series with a main character older than the usual status quo, This Safe Darkness is absolutely worth picking up. I’m already eagerly awaiting book two.
Thank you to Alexis Maragold and The Nerd Fam for the eARC. All opinions are my own.