"He had stayed instead of following death. Stayed in my viciousness. Stayed when the beast within won. Stayed as I tore myself apart. He stayed even now when I couldn’t give him the truth. He clung, unwavering, to the eye of my storm as I raged harder."

An enthusiastic 4 stars! ⭐️ 2010 just called and apparently dystopian romance is BACK, baby!!

It actually seems scientifically impossible that the author who wrote Conform is the same author who wrote this book. Just WOW—growth in her writing like absolutely nobody's business. Conform was kind of flop city, in my opinion....it was a cool premise, but everything just felt extremely flat and one-dimensional. But Beneath? Boy oh boy was I loving this FMC!!! The author created a female lead with complex emotions, fears, and a realistic abrasiveness that made her interesting without turning her into an Angry Woman Archetype. Sasha just had this very relatable stubbornness and fear that made me want to root for her even when she was self-sabotaging. And the romance was definitely romance-ing in this one in a way it didn't for me in Conform, which I loved to see!!

But one thing you should know going into this book is that you will NOT be getting any backstory about the dystopia this story inhabits. All we know is that there was A War™️ six years ago and now we live underground. (Who was involved? What was the war about? Don't know! Who created these tunnels? Where is this bunker even located? Doesn't matter! Get back to swingin' your goddamn pickax and eating your nutrient paste!!!) Personally, I didn't mind that. I thought I would, but once I got into the story it actually didn't bother me at all. Sometimes humanity just destroys itself because [gestures broadly around me] of course it does, and the specifics of precisely how and why it happened don't really matter. Too much explanation could've weighed it all down and detracted from the characters' storylines, I think.

It was interesting having gone into this with the context of Conform and knowing that's the world we eventually end up in. If I hadn't known this was a prequel to that, I literally never would have guessed. Maybe we'll start to see more of the connecting strings in the sequel to this one (that still takes place before Conform?), but it honestly just reads as if the author wanted to start a completely different series. Which is totally fine (and as I said, I liked this one significantly more), but it's kind of like....girl....focus on the task at hand LOL.

Anyway, I enjoyed this one—and if you've been riding the recent dystopian romance wave, I think you will, too!

"That’s the whole point to love and live, isn’t it? To protect them until the very end. To know someone will have their back, will love them after you’re gone. To trust those left to keep going.”

✨ Thank you to Ariel Sullivan, Ballantine Books, and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own. ✨

Finally! A book about why the worst force in the universe is actually Twitch streamers!!!

3.75 ⭐️ rounded up to 4 ⭐️

I went in with extremely high hopes for this one. At this point, if Matt Dinniman publishes it, he can just reach right into my wallet and take my credit card. I will never NOT buy something he writes.

With that being said...

This one fell a little flat for me in places. "It's a great book as long as you don't go in comparing it to Dungeon Crawler Carl!"—that's what you, my fellow reviewers, said. Well, I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to be comparing every single sci-fi book I ever read to Dungeon Crawler Carl because that series kicks ass.....and especially when it's written by the same author and has an almost eerily similar premise. So yes, I did measure this book against DCC, and no, it wasn't as good. ("But Sara," you say. "Why did you rate it 4 stars then?" Be quiet. I'll get there.)

The thing that DCC had going for it was a very unique and fast-paced plot that made up for a relative lack of character building for Carl in book 1. (How is he emotionally handling the end of the world? Doesn't matter! There's a goddamn talking cat and they're being chased by a bulldozer of goblins! Aaaaah!) In this book, there was a similar lack of character building—perhaps even considerably less than in DCC—but without a fast-paced, slam-dunk plot to make up for it. I couldn't really tell you much about the relationships between characters or what their emotional state was at any point in the book. Really all I can say is that they all wanted to not die, but that's about it. And for the first 75% of the book, the plot in question was just info-dumping different kinds of mechs and guns and the characters cycling through a series of minor battles that were largely indistinguishable from each other.

As for the last 25% of the book...things got CRAZY. That last quarter is what bumped this up from 3 stars to 4 stars rounded for me. (For me, 3 stars is "neutral-leaning-good" where a book didn't waste my time but wasn't really anything special, and then 4 stars is "I enjoyed it" where I have a variety of things I can praise about it.) I'm also willing to forgive a lot in the name of a book being a standalone rather than, say, a 7+ book series. I think we need more standalones these days. I don't really want to say too much about the ending or why I liked it, though, because I don't want to give anything away. But in broad terms, I liked Roger's evolution as a character and I liked their band's show—those two things were the emotional lynchpins to the entire book, and I found them to be very redeeming for the rest of it. The spreadsheet of potential taunts that Roger generates was hilarious. There's even a nice ghosting of a message in there that makes points about public apathy and desensitization towards suffering, but I think Matt could've taken it a bit farther.

Would I have rather just read the next DCC? Yes. But did I still enjoy this one by the end? Also yes.

“Roger,” I began, “whatever you’re planning on doing, you can’t, not if it’s going to hurt innocent people.” “You are a terrible terrorist, Oliver.”

Book recommendations: 📗 Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Read this if you want more end-of-the-world adventures featuring a robot with personality. 📕 The Grinding by Matt Dinniman. Now THIS is what I wanted when I read Operation Bounce House. A truly UNIQUE premise with a fast-paced plot and an ending that really roundhouse kicks you in the stomach. It's out of print and not on K*ndle, but the immersive audiobook (narrated by the incomparable Jeff Hays) is on Soundbooth. Know that this one is more horror than sci-fi, though.