A review by harasnicole
Beneath by Maureen A. Miller
3.0
Thank you to Barclay Publicity for giving me an advanced copy to review. My opinions are my own.
This book was interesting, I'll give it that. I don't read much Fantasy as it is, so for me, I've never read anything like this about a girl who goes on a sailing trip with her best friend's family and they get into an accident that capsizes the boat. And not only that, but every one of them, all five of them, get swept up in some kind of . . . not a whirlpool, but I fail to find the correct word. A channel, maybe? Anyway, they get caught up in it and end up being dragged down to approximately 2,000 feet below the Atlantic Ocean, washing up in some grotto that you soon find out is "affectionately" named the "Underworld" with a river called Styx.
It's not really the Underworld, by the way. They just didn't know what else to call it, and really, the name fits. The only thing it was missing was Hades and Persephone and Cerberus, the three-headed dog. But that's not that kind of a story. This story is more or less an introduction, because this is the first book in a series and the ending is more or less a cliffhanger.
I will admit that this book did take me awhile to really get into, because the setup is kind of slow to start, but at the same time, I get it. I did mention that this is essentially an introduction, so the focus is more on the world-building and the characters and the plot. There is a romance between Stella (the main character) and her best friend's older brother, Colin. I wasn't too impressed with their relationship, however, because I didn't feel the chemistry between them (and Stella, not gonna lie, pissed me off with her constant second-guessing of his feelings. I get being insecure in the face of new love, but damn); their relationship, as slow-burn as it is, fell flat for me. I'm hoping it'll be more fleshed out in the sequel.
There's a deviance from Stella's point-of-view twice, to peek in at Jill (the BFF) and her budding relationship with a boy who's been in the "Underworld" for, I think it was 20 years? I can't remember, but he was 13 when fell off a boat and sank, so maybe it was more like five years beneath (see what I did there?). Stella and Jill are college freshman, Colin's a college sophomore. Anyway, I didn't really see the point of focusing at Jill at any point in the story, even if one of her chapters was warranted. She, herself, doesn't really add anything, in my opinion, and I couldn't understand why she and Stella were even friends.
Back to the story as a whole, though. When you're down in this underwater world for an extended period of time, you start to adapt, and if you adapt badly, then you become a kind of beast because of carbon dioxide poisoning. Colin and Stella snoop around this new world every night when everyone's asleep, and each night they discover something different to ask Etienne and Frederic about. Etienne likes to keep things close to the chest, but Frederic is more forthcoming with his answers. Etienne also has a short fuse, and multiple times I got the feeling that he's seconds away from "changing" because of the flashes that Stella saw in his eyes, but I guess somehow he's able to suppress it, so that'll be an interesting angle if that is, in fact, the case.
The cast of characters is small, and I'm still not sure about their part in this story, but I am definitely still interested in seeing where this story goes because with an ending like that, it left me feeling like this:
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
This book was interesting, I'll give it that. I don't read much Fantasy as it is, so for me, I've never read anything like this about a girl who goes on a sailing trip with her best friend's family and they get into an accident that capsizes the boat. And not only that, but every one of them, all five of them, get swept up in some kind of . . . not a whirlpool, but I fail to find the correct word. A channel, maybe? Anyway, they get caught up in it and end up being dragged down to approximately 2,000 feet below the Atlantic Ocean, washing up in some grotto that you soon find out is "affectionately" named the "Underworld" with a river called Styx.
It's not really the Underworld, by the way. They just didn't know what else to call it, and really, the name fits. The only thing it was missing was Hades and Persephone and Cerberus, the three-headed dog. But that's not that kind of a story. This story is more or less an introduction, because this is the first book in a series and the ending is more or less a cliffhanger.
I will admit that this book did take me awhile to really get into, because the setup is kind of slow to start, but at the same time, I get it. I did mention that this is essentially an introduction, so the focus is more on the world-building and the characters and the plot. There is a romance between Stella (the main character) and her best friend's older brother, Colin. I wasn't too impressed with their relationship, however, because I didn't feel the chemistry between them (and Stella, not gonna lie, pissed me off with her constant second-guessing of his feelings. I get being insecure in the face of new love, but damn); their relationship, as slow-burn as it is, fell flat for me. I'm hoping it'll be more fleshed out in the sequel.
There's a deviance from Stella's point-of-view twice, to peek in at Jill (the BFF) and her budding relationship with a boy who's been in the "Underworld" for, I think it was 20 years? I can't remember, but he was 13 when fell off a boat and sank, so maybe it was more like five years beneath (see what I did there?). Stella and Jill are college freshman, Colin's a college sophomore. Anyway, I didn't really see the point of focusing at Jill at any point in the story, even if one of her chapters was warranted. She, herself, doesn't really add anything, in my opinion, and I couldn't understand why she and Stella were even friends.
Back to the story as a whole, though. When you're down in this underwater world for an extended period of time, you start to adapt, and if you adapt badly, then you become a kind of beast because of carbon dioxide poisoning. Colin and Stella snoop around this new world every night when everyone's asleep, and each night they discover something different to ask Etienne and Frederic about. Etienne likes to keep things close to the chest, but Frederic is more forthcoming with his answers. Etienne also has a short fuse, and multiple times I got the feeling that he's seconds away from "changing" because of the flashes that Stella saw in his eyes, but I guess somehow he's able to suppress it, so that'll be an interesting angle if that is, in fact, the case.
The cast of characters is small, and I'm still not sure about their part in this story, but I am definitely still interested in seeing where this story goes because with an ending like that, it left me feeling like this:
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars