Lights Out Does It Right
8/17/20256 min read
Either you’ve heard of Lights Out, or you live under a rock. The book has skyrocketed to prominence through the rave reviews it received on a side of TikTok known as BookTok. The book's tagline is the couple who slays together, stays together, and it is described as “The viral TikTok stalker dark romance, burning with high heat, hilarious banter, and a love story like you’ve never seen before. Can you handle the ride?”
You heard that right. Stalker romance. The female main character is Aly, a trauma nurse. Her male counterpart is Josh, a white hat hacker. Aly watches masked man thirst traps religiously, and her favorite creator is The Faceless Man, who is actually Josh. Josh is Aly’s ex-hookups roommate and best friend. Josh finds out through Tyler that Aly has a mask kink, and uses his hacking skills to find all the comments she’s left on his videos. There are many. In some of them, Aly fantasizes about coming home to find The Faceless Man has broken into her house. Josh takes her at her word. He films a thirst trap in her house and leaves his mask there, placing a hidden camera so he’ll know if she is into it or not.
It’s the classic love story. Girl thirsts over boy on the internet, boy breaks into girl’s house, they fall in love. Right?
Oh, also, Josh’s dad is a serial killer and he has a lot of baggage and worries that he is going to turn out like him. And Aly got into a car crash as a new driver that her mom died in and she feels responsible. And Aly has mob connections who help Josh and Aly hide the body of the rapist they accidentally kill.
Here’s where I’m going to ask something unusual. I’m going to ask you to withhold judgement. Maybe you aren’t judging, but if you’re like me, you’re probably judging at least a bit. Withhold.
Here’s what you have to understand about Lights Out– it’s just not that serious. It’s funny. Say it with me, people, funny. It knows what it is, or more specifically, the author, Navessa Allen, knows what it is. Her TikTok page is full of masked men doing funny little dances, and other such kinky skits. The book was born from a video in which Allen threw out an idea for a dark romance, and commenters begged her to write it. Everyone, including Allen, understands that the book is a fantasy, not a story that should ever happen in real life. Allen even has a skit where she shoots someone trying to do what Josh does in the book. It’s not real, and it’s just not that serious. It’s a good time.
And judging from the reviews, it seems like people need a good time. It has a 4 star rating on Goodreads, with comments such as:
The way this man is everything I want in a man… somebody sedate me. I need a carbon copy 3-D version of this man, first class delivered to my doorstep immediately before I pull the trigger! Raw raw raw or whatever Lady Gaga said.
I really want to contextualize this book within the realm of a readership who is into a man who’s tall, tattooed, morally grey, and dominant. It’s hard for me to fairly review these books sometimes, given that that’s just not my cup of tea. But while that affects my reading experience, it doesn’t say anything about the story as a whole. With all of that in mind, here are my takeaways.
This book is porn. I haven’t yet come up with a working definition of a book that’s porn and a book with a lot of sex in it, so right now I’m at a “you know it when you see it” kind of place. I’ll include some quotes and you can feel free to disagree with me on this. I’m not saying this with any judgement– I actually think it’s a useful framework to view the story through, because when Josh does things like place a camera in Aly’s room, you have to remember that it’s not real.
The consent in this book is fantastic and refreshing. Both characters are equally into the sex. I’m far from the authority on this, but the stuff they do seems pretty kinky, and the consent is not Aly not saying no, but enthusiastically saying yes or asking for it.
Aly is allowed to be kinky and take on a caretaker role. She’s a nurse who takes great care of her patients, and she’s into kinky sex. So many narratives would treat these two things as existing in opposition to each other, because caring = motherly = non-sexual. In Lights Out, Aly is both a kind woman and a sexual being. Finally!
I want to take some time here to dive into a theory I’ve had for a while, that one way groups of people are oppressed is through villainizing something that is innately human. This idea can be explained through the oppression of many groups, but I’ll focus on women here.
Think about the things that women are not supposed to do, and then think about the things that human beings, as part of biology, are always going to do. Humans get hungry. Women aren’t supposed to be hungry in public– they often eat before dates so they only delicately pick at their plate. Humans bodies change over time– women are supposed to look perpetually sixteen. Humans get horny and have sex– women are not really supposed to do any of these things, and if they do, only within the confines of marriage.
These rules have become more lenient in the 21st century, but these ideas still affect us. Therefore, books being written for women to live out their sexual fantasies is hugely radical. And women aren’t just reading these books in secret, they are posting about them on social media, buying the books in droves, making them bestsellers.
But once a book is a bestseller, lots of people read it who wouldn’t have otherwise picked up a dark stalker romance. And not all of those people took the time to be non judgmental. Here’s some quotes from The Icha Library’s review, titled ‘The Kinkiest Book We’ve Ever Read!”
It’s a sicko, sicko who wrote this!
But this is a hit seller.
Oh women are loving it!
I saw some woman (on goodreads), she said she wanted to caress her eyeballs with the pages. I said sicko. I said check her hard-drive. Literally, check her hard-drive.
You see what I mean? Who’d have ever thought prudish ole’ me would be screaming into the void “let women be horny!”
Let me be clear, if you are someone who liked this book, it does not make you a sicko. Or a pervert. Actually, name a form of porn outside of literature where you know for a fact that no one involved in the making is being exploited in some way. I’ll wait.
There is a radical power in grown women being horny. Is there stuff in the book I could dissect? Yes. Do I see the appeal in a man who needs to know where I am for his peace of mind, who bosses me around and ties me up? No, I don’t. But I don’t have understand the appeal to be able to understand that there is nothing wrong with being appealed!
I also watched Reading with Rachel’s review, which went into some issues with the book I agreed with. I don’t have the space to get into it all here, but I highly recommend checking out her channel.
The takeaway from her video sums up how I feel about this book perfectly, “If you’re going to do it, do it right.”
This book is what it is. It is a non-serious, dark romance. Yes, there is stalking, but you have to accept that in universe it’s not a bad thing. Yes, you know that Josh isn’t a bad guy because his eyes aren’t lifeless like all bad peoples eyes are, and no that’s not a thing. But it’s not serious. It’s a fantasy. If you’re going to do it, do it right. And Lights Out does it right.
Congrats, you made it to the end! Have some sex quotes.
I stabbed the knife down.
Straight into the corner of her mattress.
She clapped her hands over her mouth to muffle her horrified scream.
I crooked a finger at her, beckoning her forward.
“Come here, Aly,” I said, wrapping my other hand around the knife handle so there would be no mistaking my intent. “I want to watch you ride it.”
No thanks!
Pure
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT8wVzIvm8k&list=WL&index=54