ARC Review: What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
OH MY WORD what a book!! I will be raving about this one for a while…it is absolutely going in my favorites of the year but likely my favorites of all time. Read this in one day, almost one sitting!! I couldn’t put it down.
Bullet points for those short on time:
- YA Horror / Fantasy
- One First Person POV
- Layered Underworld
- Class & Capitalism
- Make It Out Alive
- One Last Score
- Friends Till The End
What Feeds Below follows two friends, Pet and Jade, as they lead tourists down into the Void to make money to survive. The Void is a huge super spooky crater underworld thing that includes layers upon layers of dangerous flora and fauna. There might also be a “lost civilization” at the bottom too. But Pet and Jade need to make a bigger score since they have dreams to accomplish. They find their mark in Henry, a bumbling tourist looking for the brilliant gems the Void can offer and will pay a lot more to go to the more hazardous layers…this job might give Pet and Jade the freedom and security they are looking for, if they can make it out alive.
This was a perfect YA novel. It was written so well for YA, and written well in general. But so often, novels placed in YA are actually adult novels, or it’s almost over the top juvenile. What Feeds Below was none of this – it was PERFECT!
Botanical horror is featured heavily in this book and I ATE IT UP. I have only been getting more into horror this year and while I have enjoyed other horror books, this is the first one where I really actually enjoyed the horror parts. Which sounds wierd to say at the moment but sure other horror readers are used to this sentiment. You could tell the author did their research in terms of plant medicine (a subject I am familiar with) but then takes it to a whole new level of imaginative story telling, creating an entire world of Void creatures and plants. It was delicious!!
If you are a plant or botanical medicine or herbalism fan – this book is for you.
Class and capitalism are also explored in this book as well. The way the Void tourism and guide situation operates is very much dictated by class differences, money, etc. I liked how the author structured the novel to discuss these themes and show how it impacts people through this story. I could see this book being a great option for the older range of YA ages to read/analyze/discuss in either class setting or individual reading.
Fast-paced, tense, claustrophobic, scary – this book had me on the edge of my seat! It’s under 300 pages so a quick read and the pacing blasts through the story but also not too quickly, everything is covered. I would absolutely read more books set in this world though or in this story, even though this seems to be a standalone at the moment. This is also partly because I want to know more about the world and it’s mysteries. This could be a series since there is so much that could be done with what was created.
HIGHLY highly recommend, and with spooky season coming up, this is a no-doubt-about-it immediate add to TBR!
As always, check trigger warnings:
This book is a horror so there is a lot of creepy gorey scenes with Void creatures and one or two with humans.
Thank you to Bindery & Boozhoo Books for the eARC review copy via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
About the Author: Check out more on their website here!
About the Publisher: From Boozhoo Books led by Naomi Darling, Bindery Imprint.
Bindery:
“Bindery is a membership platform for tastemakers of the book world to cultivate community, champion the authors and stories that matter to them, and earn a sustainable income doing so from the most passionate members of their audience. Tastemakers with larger communities, upon invitation, may open a publishing imprint that surfaces new books by authors their communities will love. Bindery partners with the tastemaker to design their imprint brand, solicit submissions, and manage editorial, design, printing, publicity, and distribution everywhere books are sold.”
They offer a standard $10k advance and higher royalty rates relative to most traditional publishers.
Does Bindery’s contract include AI protections?
Yes. We believe strongly in the human arts of curation and creation and are here to support artists. We will never use AI-generated art, narration, or text in our books, nor will our materials be offered for machine learning. Our contracts reflect the Author’s Guild recommended protections in this area.
That being said by Bindery, their backer Baukunst invests heavily in startups and companies applying AI (71%). Do with this knowledge what you will. I will still support Bindery since the company doesn’t use AI and I want to see more of the books they are publishing out in the world. But, I will endeavor to support other indie publishers that don’t have venture capitalist firms backing them which support AI use…
Also, Baukunst prides themselves the “high” number of female-founded startups at 43%. While this may be on the higher end of the industry, I would say, do better. With intention, this number could be 100% if a firm really wanted it to be. Also, they don’t mention other marginalised communities being backed or supported in their demographics, so is it mostly white founders they are supporting? Where are those stats of theirs? Of course, there’s always a reason why certain things are published, and others are not. I’ll leave it there.
Bindery is backed by Baukunst, a collective of creative technologists advancing the art of building companies at the frontiers of technology and design, along with strategic angel investors from the book publishing and tech worlds.
Check out more about Bindery here.
Happy Reading!