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A review by stephanieluxton
Below by Laurel Hightower
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This book is about a woman travelling alone at night who has to make the decision whether or not to help a truckdriver who had helped her earlier after he has an accident the causes him to drive off a bridge. Also there's some supernatural shit going down.
I heard about this book on instagram reels and I picked it up because it was a short. My expectations were that it'd be a mothman type creature feature but it was so different from what I expected. It's not a traditional creature feature in which our characters are plainly stalked by a cryptid - it's more complex than that.
The ambience in this book is excellent. It reminded me a lot of the movie Barbarian in the sense that our protagonist is travelling alone and doesn't know whether or not to trust this man who is being kind and accomodating to her obvious skepticism.
What this book delivers is a wild ride. For sucha short book, it delivered some excellent little twists. Totally subverted my expectations.
Something this book does well is creating characters you care about in a short period of time.
The writing and dialogue was good. There were times where I felt a little confused regarding the characters surroundings but its a dark night so I suppose it's meant to feel disorienting.
I heard about this book on instagram reels and I picked it up because it was a short. My expectations were that it'd be a mothman type creature feature but it was so different from what I expected. It's not a traditional creature feature in which our characters are plainly stalked by a cryptid - it's more complex than that.
The ambience in this book is excellent. It reminded me a lot of the movie Barbarian in the sense that our protagonist is travelling alone and doesn't know whether or not to trust this man who is being kind and accomodating to her obvious skepticism.
What this book delivers is a wild ride. For sucha short book, it delivered some excellent little twists. Totally subverted my expectations.
Something this book does well is creating characters you care about in a short period of time.
The writing and dialogue was good. There were times where I felt a little confused regarding the characters surroundings but its a dark night so I suppose it's meant to feel disorienting.
It is a scary book. I almost finished it in one sitting just because I was nervous to go to sleep part way through. It's also fast paced and exciting and I was investing it what the hell was going on.
The first three quarters of the book are the best. The ending isn't bad. I think in horror it's often best to be left not understanding what happened rather than getting a big exposition dump but also I HAVE QUESTIONS. I WANT TO KNOW MORE.
I want to know the answers to the questions but I also love speculating. The fact that we don't get all the answers ensures that the reasonings for the events of the book aren't stupid, I guess.
I would definitely recommend this book.
I would definitely recommend this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Blood, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Gaslighting
Minor: Vomit
I don't recommend reading the spoilers because it'll take all the excitement out of the book and it's actually way cooler in the book than it sounds when I write it out. This is not an extreme horror novel.
This book is about a transport truck driving off a bridge and basically falling to it's doom. The driver of the truck gets eaten by humanoids - we mostly see the aftermath but it's gory. There's autopsied bodies in the truck for an undisclosed reason. Our protagonist has to navigate a dark cave setting avoiding humanoids and mind-games by a godlike entity. It's gory when the protagonist smashes in a humanoid head. She also gets bitten by a humanoid and the wound on her stomach is described but it's not that explicit.