Don't Trust the Description.

I love The Martian and enjoyed the Area X books. This is not those. At first, it's very promising, delivering an intriguing setting and interesting description of futuristic cave exploration tech suits. But that's the peak. The rest of the book is interpersonal drama between its only two characters, with the main one self-sabotaging things at every turn. If you like stories about middle school girls fighting over walkie-talkies, you might enjoy this.

11 people found this helpful

Decent but frustrating

The story was good enough to keep me listening until the end, and the narration is quite good given kind of weak material.

The book is frustrating because it is somewhat like the Martian, except the characters have the emotional maturity of drunk adolescents and respond to every adversity with some combination of panic, recrimination, and suicidal impulses.

Characters oscillate between love, hate, contempt, distrust, trust, respect, despair, you name it. Huge minute-by-minute swings that seem arbitrary and disappear as quickly as they appeared.

It’s a good premise for a book, but it’s not a great book.

8 people found this helpful

Not The Martian, Not Claustrophobic

I listened to this more than a month ago but didn’t write a review at the time because I felt it would have been too harsh. After a month, I still consider this to be the worst audiobook I have listed to from Audible. The best I can summarize is it features two codependent personalities, one a sociopath and one a masochist, who fall in love while considering the other to be either disposable or a murderer. I listened to the whole thing thinking there had to be a final moment of justice to make the journey worthwhile. SPOILER ALERT: There wasn’t. Sorry to give such a poor review of an author's efforts but I’d really like you to save your credits for almost anything else.

6 people found this helpful

parents issues galore

the entire book is two people crying about parental issues. not worth wasting 15 hours listening to

4 people found this helpful

Not what I expected, liked it anyways

I was warned off this book by friend who knew I didn't particularly enjoy (understatement) slow-burn horror. However, the cover was interesting (I was down for some hand-shaped submersibles! .... I realized a quarter of the way in that that wasn't a hand shaped submersible) and Adenrele Ojo did a decent job with the narration sample that I listened to, so I decided to step outside my comfort zone.

I liked The Luminous Dead. I didn't love it, but I admired the fact that Starling could still easily hook me and pull me through a story that I found to be not the least bit scary and filled with a romance angle that had me wanting to reach into the book and slap some sense into Gyre.

In less talented hands, I would have DNFed this book partway through. In Starling's, I was left yelling at the book: "It ain't love, honey. Put your hormones away. That b*tch is crazy! You can get laid once you're away from her!" (There might have been more expletives involved.)

I don't object to unhealthy relationships portrayed in text, though. Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it has to portray perfect romances. I do hope, however, that no one reads this and thinks "Oh, how romantic!"... Because it's not.

The idea for The Luminous Dead is simple yet effective. Stick a person so deep in a cave that they might as well be on another planet (regardless of the fact that they actually are on another planet in the story), give them access to only one person - have them realize early on that the persona was crazy and play with the story from there.

I felt like as the book got further along there was so much more attention on the developing "relationship" than the fact that Gyre was pretty much constantly in a life threatening situation. So I absolutely loved it when some of the horror elements finally came into play.


One particular scene had me grinning with sheer appreciation. Striving that hard to get your wish is always going to backfire spectacularly, isn't it?

Overall,while I can't say that The Luminous Dead was my cup of tea, I did enjoy it. I think Caitlin Starling is a talented writer and I look forward to seeing what she comes out with next.

3 people found this helpful

Great narrator, horrible story

I can't believe how slow this book is. I feel like it took hours to even get to the point and then once it got there I didn't even care. The narrator was great, she breathed life into an otherwise horribly boring story.

1 person found this helpful

Too long

Should have been much shorter. Repetitiously repetitious, with many chapters essentially the same as one another.

1 person found this helpful

Not for everyone but perfect for me

Some things to know going into this book: it has a slow-pace and a heavy, isolated atmosphere. It is character-driven and essentially only has two characters, who are messy and flawed. It’s a slice-of-life, if your life happens to involve dangerous and sketchy caving expeditions on another planet.

These are all things I absolutely loved. I loved seeing Gyre and Em develop both as individuals and in relation to one another. I loved that I felt curious for the majority of the book. I loved the tension of having an unrealizable narrator. I LOVED Gyre’s caving suit, which (other than the background planetary discussions) is the primary sci-fi focus. If these are all things you might also love, I highly recommend checking out this book.

1 person found this helpful

great voiceover, solid story

interesting concept, sometimes a little overwrought, and at times i was impatient - but in the end the story moved along.

not scary, told, not shown

disappointing. melodramatic. redundant. anticlimactic by accident. i was looking for space sci-fi horror. I'm sad