Uhh ... this was ... not it ...

I have rarely been this bored reading a book than I was reading the Gods Below. It's not that it was bad (okay, maybe ... maybe it was bad) but it's just a collection of miserable characters living in a miserable world with a miserable magic system.

And I'm always one for ecological fantasy! Like, man, look out the window into the world and at our carbon emissions and species dying out by the hundreds and thousands every day! It's not that hard to imagine a world where the planet has been entirely decimated and destroyed. And yet, Stewart manages to make that premise so goddamn bland.

This bland world created for the Gods Below houses characters that seem to be even more bland. There's a thing to be said about here and the amount of POV characters, and that word is that there was simply too many, and there wasn't enough of a difference between their voices that it would be interesting. The blurb names Hakara as the main character, but what does she do, really? Not much! Rasha was a bit more interesting, but that was basically because she was the only one who actually had a plotline going on. The others just meander around this bland world, and to be honest, I found myself skipping through entire POV chapters, because just nothing happened in them. Some dude is trying to invent gas masks. One woman has family trouble. Hakara eats some rocks (but more on that ... below.. Haha, get it? ... Ugh.). It was just ... so boring.

So you have this world in metaphorical shades of beige and a cast of characters that are basically the same, just with different names - but what is missing from that? RIGHT, the most boring magic system ever invented. I feel like authors and books and series have been getting praised for having "unique magic systems" a lot recently, so authors writing something new are scrambling to figure out a new one that readers can bestow the "unique magic system" badge to. This backfires spectacularly in this book, because the magic is, also, you guessed it!, really boring.
Basically, Hakara eats a big gem stone, and depending on the color of the gemstone, she either gets super strong arms or super strong legs or similar things. But only ... until she breathes again! So she has to hold her breath for the magic to stay.
What the fuck? The breath thing limits the power of the magic system so devastatingly that it's not even worth it having the enhanced-limb-thing be so underpowered. Maybe like, having a rock that makes her have fire powers would've been cool, but no, strong arms. Uhh ... thanks? It's basically pointless? And then there's some bonding magic stuff that makes absolutely no sense because it's described as this super important and intimate thing, but then Hakara bonds and un-bonds with tons of people. It's weird.

I'm just so glad it's over. I'm definitely not going to be picking up any sequels, and, to be honest, this book was so bad that it put me off reading Stewart's other books, too. So, uhh ... great!

I have read other work by this author and loved it. However I really struggled with this one. My main grip was the pacing, for me it was far too slow. I am sure that this frustration meant that the characters failed to shine. I could not connect with them and as a result what promised to be a rich story fell flat.

Sadly a DNF for me. Wanted to like this but the characters left me cold. Got over halfway through before calling it a day.

This book reminds me of my latest attempt at banana bread: all the right ingredients to make such a satisfying dessert, and yet it turns out half-baked, top burnt, and leaves a poor aftertaste. (Just like I'm a good baker on any given day, Andrea Stewart is a great author that just happened to miss this time, in my opinion.)

The saddest part of all this is that in only 5 chapters I was invested in a certain character's story. That's all they get—5 chapters—and they were more than enough to break my heart. Honestly, that’s probably what’s missing. This book needed a trim to help with the pacing, but also to heighten the characters’ emotions and thought processes. They were so wooden, so single-minded. Each POV repeated the same ideas time and again. I truly wouldn’t have made it without the audiobook.

The core of this story had everything to succeed (hello, two separated sisters wanting to find each other again, not knowing if the other is alive), but mostly I was annoyed at both of them, especially Rasha towards the end. Her last chapter just made me really dislike her, and I get what’s happening, why we need it to happen, but she got so many clues throughout the entire story for it to end like this.

I won’t even bother with the romance—can you really have a good romance arc with proper character development? Exactly. I don’t read high fantasy looking for romance, but if you’re going to do it, please do it properly or just let people have other kinds of relationships.
I’ll give Stewart the two stars for that side character’s POV, cool concept and for not hitting me over the head with themes. I truly appreciate an author who trusts their readers to pick up on subtle threads.

Thank you to NetGalley, Andrea Stewart and Orbit for the chance to read and review this book.

The Gods Below is an exciting introduction to an ambitious and complex universe. I had a really good time following all the POVs and fell in love with the characters. Stewart's writing was captivating and it makes me extremely exciting to get to read more from this series.

After reading and adoring this author's last trilogy I was eager to get into this one. It is set in a world that is set in a future, a war has split the world and there are two sides. Hakara and her sister Rasha are caught up in this ever-changing world. Gods are roaming and people are being forced to choose sides. It is not guaranteed who will live and who will survive. The sisters are separated and one enters a new version of the world whereas the other manages to escape to remain in what is left of the old world. The dilemma for everyone in this world is that not everyone can transition to the new and will die.

Living together, the sisters make a meagre life, living in poverty and living by their wits. Hakara is the elder and keeps an eye out for Rasha, but when change comes looming overhead, the decision as to what to do is somewhat taken out of their hands. Rasha remains, and Hakara is taken into what is left of the old.

This is a story that is about change, giving with consequences and also about adapting to the way of life as it is now. Rahsa is adapting to her new life and those around her and the religion that she is now to follow.

Whereas Hakara is trying to continue with a life without her sister, she feels guilty for not being with her and is trying her hardest to find a way back to Rasha.

The author creates another fabulous world, full of action and adventure and a mass of characters. There are lots of cast but they do gradually become memorable and the author introduces them gradually. There are religions, beliefs, hierarchy, ways of life and the ins and outs of the two worlds.

Several other stories are also involved in this story, one involves searching for an old route into the Hollow world, another channels the magic of ems from the mines, the gods and also the symbiotic relationships that are also a good part of the story.

This is the first book in this trilogy and the author has included a lot of details and has set the scene for what is to follow. The author has created a fabulous world and one that I soon found myself absorbed into. I am definitely looking forward to the next in the trilogy.

This is one for those who like their fantasy reads with plenty of world-building, imaginative characters and creations. It is one I would definitely recommend.

I wanted to love this. I feel like I could. But it just draaaaaagged. It felt so much longer than it was and it was a little destroying. Maybe ut was the writing style. I liked the plot and characters though. 3.5 stars.

With this being the second fantasy series by Andrea Stewart I have read, I am very convinced that she is unparalleled in worldbuilding with the most creative magic systems.

Here it involves gods, a war, transformations, altered humans, jewels and restoration. And all of this spanning centuries and told from five different POVs. With all that complexity, Andrea Stewart still makes it seem effortless and manages to bring the reader into the world without the need for info dump after info dump. On the contrary, I was eager for more lore and history.

On the other hand, and this worldbuilding and POVs takes a bit away from character building. While they are all very interesting and definitely deserve their own chapters, it's a bit hard to really root for them and not just see them as people moved across this rich world purely for plot reasons.

I'm just saying this though because usually I enjoy my character driven stories more. But here I was so enthralled by the world that I didn't mind very much.

I have high hopes for the next books in the series, and even deeper lore and character arcs.

4,5/5 stars

Thank you @netgalley and @LittleBrownBookGroup_UK for the eARC!

#TheGodsBelow #Netgalley #Bookstagram

Now this is how you start a new fantasy series!!

I was hooked from the very first chapter and didn’t want the story to end. Hakara is one of the best protagonists that I have ever read and I was rooting for her from the very beginning.

The magic systems are intricate and fascinating, I cannot wait to see how it plays out in the next one.

I’m obsessed.

The world is Shattered.
One God has taken it upon himself to restore the world from the devastation that the mortals have inflicted, one realm at a time. But is all as it seems?
All the while, the mere mortals that caused the Shattering, are scraping by. When Restoration comes, if caught, they will either disappear or be Altered.
The story follows sisters, Hakara and Rasha, separated when their realm was Restored.
One Altered and the other a mortal. Will they find each another?

I did struggle slightly getting into the story for the first 3/4 of the book, but that could have been due to things going on in my personal life.

This is the first Andrea Stewart book I’ve read and I enjoyed the world building and will be looking forward to the next instalment of The Hollow Covenant series.

Big thanks to NetGalley and The Little Brown Book Group for this eARC.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬 & 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬: adult Asian inspired fantasy, dystopian world, gods, war between a god an human kind, lqbtq+ romances and characters, magic system used as gems, multi pov and storylines, two timelines

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Gods Below is the first book in a new Asian inspired fantasy trilogy centring around the two sisters Rasha and Hakara, who at that a young age end up on opposite sides of an ancient war between a powerful god and the humankind.

The novel is set in a world with a dystopian character to it and has a distinct focus on the themes of resource depletion, climate change and global warming as well as the impact humans have on the earth. Apart from those concerns the characters in this novel are also faced with the threat of a force field similar to the Fold that either kills or transforms people into mammal, winged or reptile like human beings called altered.
The environmental themes were also cleverly used as a part of the world building, which was an aspect I really liked since it also paired well with the magic system establish in this book. Said magic system uses gems (god gems to be specific) as a method to enhance a person’s physical strength or even beyond that with the help of holding your breath and a bonded altered partner.
Overall, I´ve found the magic system quite interesting however my only complaint would be that I didn’t fully understand the necessity of the “holding your breath” aspect of it.

Apart from the battles the two sisters and the characters surrounding them must fight above the ground, The Gods Below also takes the reader on a doomed expedition underground to find the ancient and abandoned realm of the gods together with another set of characters. This storyline was probably my favourite of the novel, and I hope we get to explore it more in the next book.

Overall, The Gods Below was a great start to a new series that not only gave a good introduction to its characters, world and magic, but also nicely blended together fantasy, dystopian with a tiny bit of sci-fi as well.
Lastly, some little aspects and elements of this book that I really liked were the nice chapter lengths, the small The Bone Shard Daughter easter egg and that it had some great plot twists.

Up until this point I had heard a lot about Andrea Stewart's work but had only read one of her short stories in an anthology. I was eager to read one of her novels, and The Gods Below did not disappoint. Everything is wonderfully detailed, and each of the narrators help the reader explore the world fully.

What I found especially unique and entertaining was that this book is both apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic. In The Gods Below, the world was split into many realms so that they could be "restored", an event that dramatically changes the environment and results in some people changing into humanoid creatures or disappearing from reality entirely. The being behind the restoration, a god, can only restore the realms one at a time. The book starts with one such realm being restored, and then follows the story of characters from that realm.

By doing so, Stewart shows us the before, after and the current terrifying situation of living in a place that could disappear at any moment. Some narrators are from the realm that has just been restored, while others are in the next realm. Sometimes books with multiple narrators feel too heavy, the focus split too much. But I felt that Stewart had just the right amount of balance in this book. I also thought it was very inventive to have one of the narrative voices tell the story of the past and how the current situation was created. It is a heartbreaking account, so have some tissues on hand.

One of the secondary characters is ill with an unknown condition, and her health is deteriorating. While I normally would advocate for the disabled character to have their own voice, writing her through the eyes of one of the narrators allowed for Stewart to tackle the idea of curing and saviour behaviour head on. The narrator wants to save their friend, and it was good to see him realise his mistake in doing so.

It may seem to some that the disabled character is passive, following along with the narrator's wishes to cure her. However, I felt that it was made clear that her focus was on spending time with her friend and doing something they both enjoyed, rather than wallowing at home.

I enjoyed this book a lot and can't wait for the sequel! There is also gorgeous artwork to accompany the book which I highly recommend checking out.

I'm curious to learn more about the gods; given how many other individuals possess abilities, what makes them superior to us? Given that they are actually mortal, they are obviously not entirely immortal. This book covered a portion of the magic system, but I hope we get to see more in later installments as I know there was in the author's original series.

While _The Gods Below_ showcases Andrea Stewart's vivid imagination, it fails to breathe life into its characters. The lack of depth in both characters and themes leaves this fantasy novel feeling disappointingly _hollow_.


> _"Sometimes a heart breaks all at once. Sometimes it is chipped away in pieces until you wake up and notice it is no longer the same."_

---

## not a disaster, my expectations were just too high

I had very high expectations about _The Gods Below_. While i haven't read Andrea Stewart's previous work, _The Bone Shard Daughter_, i saw it being recommended again and again alongside other books i loved.

I very much wanted to love this, but i didn't, and i'm quite mad about it! It's a 3 stars rating, because the writing is fine, the world-building interesting, and the plot is not riddled with holes. It probably could be a 4 stars, but i'm mad that i was fooled and that my expectations weren't met.

---

## one-note characters

**We follow quite a few characters in this story, but they are all so stupidly one-tone that they bored me out of my mind.** One lost her sister, one was abandoned, one wants to help her family. Oh and there's a guy in a case on a fool's errand (could have liked this part if it was shorter - it relied on an old trope that was very transparent and therefore annoying).

Those single traits are all the characterization they'll get, and **you can predict their every move, including the twists.** They had **the same conversations over and over again with the NPCs** (they don't get more than 1 line of backstory) with no changes. **They don't grow, they don't learn**, and when they do, it's in the last 40 pages of the book and honestly that's way too late for me to care.

Finally, **i can't forgive having 3 main female characters, and yet giving the only interesting backstory to the man!** He's not even a main character, and he's the only one to get any kind of twist, emotion or tension! **I might read the next book, but only because i want to know what happened to him,** not for anyone else :/


---

## lots of _hollow_ ideas

_The Gods Below_ is a book **which a bunch of ideas and themes, but it doesn't explore any of them meaningfully.** A few examples:

### the magic system

There were **a lot of fun ideas**: gods, magic that comes from the underground air with various degrees of power, gems you can infuse with magic to get special effects, magic that restores the climate, ... but none of them were truly developed. **We're not in the beginnings of the fantasy genre anymore, saying that some rocks are special isn't enough:** i want either a lot more details about the rules of it, or a sense of wonder and dream when using it (or both, i won't spit on that lol).

**Anytime a new magic capability was unveiled, it served the plot either immediately, or very soon after. Things end up feeling contrived** and that's upsetting, especially when it's not the author's first book at all.

### being a climate refugee, separated from family

The main sisters, Hakara and Rasha, are **essentially climate refugees**. The land they lived on was polluted, and they had to flee a catastrophic event to survive. **I initially thought this was a reference to the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean** - the girls are fleeing a giant wall of death that overpowers everything, with very little preparation time, and slim chances of success.

**We don't really get to see any of the difficulties of being a refugee or re-building after such an event.** Hakara mentions not having papers once or twice, and she lives in a slum, but **overall her life isn't so bad.** She has money, is able to save a bunch of it (yeah sure, she's smuggling illegal goods, but the danger of that doesn't appear to be high), isn't hungry or sick,... On the other side, Rasha is left alone as a kid, so **we don't see how the people adapt to the restauration and their new lives.**

**The sisters also get separated in the process,** and that fact is brought up over and over again, but in a one-tone way. I expected an exploration of the older sister's grief, her guilt at not being able to save her baby sister, but there was none of that. Hakara just moped around repeating that she wanted to find Rasha, never going deeper in her feelings.
Rasha was left alone as a child, and should have some trauma. The story says that she does, but it doesn't really get deeper than "i hate my sister because she left me", and "i now believe in god".

---

### joining a rebellion

**As usual, where there is an authoritarian regime, there is a rebellion.** And at least some of our characters will be joining it (otherwise there'd be no story!). But i found the handling of it very light. I barely felt the stakes and the dangers of their endeavors. **Since none of the side character had any emotion time on page, i couldn't care less about their injuries or deaths**. All their names blurred together.

**The political aims of the various groups wasn't clear, and neither were their positions and influence on the world.** Andrea Stewart tried to have a "little group against a big power, they're doomed" kind of situation, but **the gravitas wasn't there**. I didn't feel the lack of resources, everyone always had exactly what they needed to survive, and so many of the twists were predictable.

---

## endnotes

**Overall i'm disappointed in the treatment of everything. The political themes advertised as the main focus point were barely handled, the characters were boring and the twists came out of left field (or were so obvious i saw them from 10000 miles away).**

Have you read it? Have you read Andrea Stewart's other books? Let me know in the comments below!

Following a war that shattered the world a pact was agreed with the god Kluehnn. Land by land restoration takes place but at a terrible price. Hakara is separated from her sister Rasha and she will spend years trying to find her again. Using magical gems Hakara will summon power to help her fight.

Very well written, well paced, action packed novel. Great characters who will fight for each other and their futures. There are gods, godkillers, magic, fighting, romance and even fun. Look forward to the next book.

I am disappointed that this was one of my most anticipated books of the year, yet I did not enjoy it. I just got fed up with the characters that were uninteresting to me, and the magic system that did not translate well onto the page

Unfortunately, I won’t be continuing with The Gods Below, having decided to DNF at 20%. I gave it a good try, but ultimately couldn’t push through. The premise intrigued me, blending a dystopian world of mythological gods with themes reminiscent of Princess Mononoke, exploring nature and war and magic powers. I was excited to see how this would develop.

However, the book’s use of multiple POVs was a major stumbling block for me. I’m comfortable with 2-3 perspectives, but beyond that, it becomes difficult to follow, especially when timelines shift between characters. By the 20% mark, I had encountered about 5 different POVs, which made the story feel disjointed and less engaging.

While others might enjoy this narrative structure, it wasn’t for me, and I found it hard to stay immersed in the story.

Unfortunately I had to dnf this

This started out super strong and I loved the premise. The magic system was super interesting and the world. However with one of the character I found the author was using too many romance tropes and it made the whole plot line between them far too predictable. There were the other character stories that were interesting enough but after a while
I found my interest waning so I dnfed.

I definitely feel this book will find its audience and I’ll be in the minority here. It’s just not a book for me.

The Gods Below, the first book to Andrea Stewart’s newest fantasy trilogy is set in a destroyed world. Centuries ago, humans used a magical resource to power their technological innovations. Not caring about its endlessness, this ultimately brought ecological degradation and destruction to both their world and the one of the gods who lived below the surface. In their desperation, one human strikes a deal with a feared God: obedience for the restoration of the world. Restoration which uses the energy of half the human population to restore the ecosystems and leaving the other half altered, giving them wings, horns or other transformations.

Throughout the story, we‘re following a number of POVs:
two sisters which got separated during the Restoration: one becomes an Altered being and joins the followers of the One God while the other sister ends up joining the resistance against said god
A young woman desperately trying to restore honour to her clan
One of the Elder Gods living through the time right before and after the Shattering
A man on a dangerous expedition to the realm of the Old Gods to find a way to help his dying friend
It sounds like a lot of POVs but in my opinion, getting to know each and every one of them is really worth it. There are some books where you’re dreading certain chapter narrators but this is not the case here. I loved each of them, we get a great cast of (queer) characters. I felt for their hopes and struggles and they all add so much to the story and world building. I’m equally confident that they will add more in the following book as the author manages to end of their views in a way that left me exited to follow the rest of their journeys.

My favourite part of the book is the world building. I like topics of this story: a world with drastically changing climates and ecosystems, a Shattering brought by human innovation and neglect of finite resources and all this mixed with gods, magic and altered beings. Andrea Stewart does a great job of explaining her world to the reader, she is adding new information in almost every chapter which makes getting to know the world both a slightly confusing but still very satisfying experience. I’m usually not a fan of snippets from texts at the beginning of each chapter but here we get parts of a diary or historic research (I’m curious to know who the author is) and I found myself looking forward to each chapter beginning. It works really well in this book and adds a lot to the world building.

While I love both the story and the world Andrea Stewart has created in this book, one thing which couldn’t convince me was the romance. I think they missed some development. This is probably due to the high number of POVs we have in this book, to progress both the story and the reveal of information, we do not have time for romance. I know the author can create heartwarming romances because we do have a side relationship in this book which I really enjoyed.

The world building and unraveling of mysteries continues throughout the whole book and the author teases some really exciting pieces of information at the end of it. I’m so curious to see where the story goes. I’d rate The Gods Below 4.25 stars.

I loved The Boneshard Daughter, so I was very excited to jump in.

The worldbuilding didn't disappoint, and the plot was good, but it felt like there were too many characters in play and some of them felt like a chore to read whenever their chapters came up and didn't contribute as much. I would have liked more detail on the Pre-Shattering plotline. The magic system was very interesting and worth reading this book for that alone.