Book Review: "What Waits Below" by Caleb N. Stephens

This is yet another one of those books I read on my phone. It's yes, another horror novel and I'm not sure what to think of this one. Previously called Feeders this book has a lot to study in terms of dynamics. What Waits Below is a strange book with weird characters, themes that seem universal even though you may not think they are. I wasn't sure I was going to like this - but in the end I enjoyed it a bit more than I thought I would. Let's explore what the book is about and what makes it a strange novel of weird dynamics...

Our story begins with a woman who is being kidnapped. She is begging her kidnapper not to do anything, but the last thing she feels is someone shoving her over their shoulder. A brilliant way to start the text, we learn our main character is a pain-killer addict who is being taken on a weird road trip by her kidnapper who has taken her pain killers away from her. His name is Alan. She is grossed out by him and he abuses her by taking the pills away and giving her only half a pill here and there. She is clearly very bothered about it (as an addict would be). Depressed, angry and scared - we get these philosophical intrusions of her thoughts. The writer clearly knows how to build a character. But then again, we also get a flashback - a flashback which probably explains something.

One day before all of this, she is meant to go out to see a friend when her father comes home and tells the entire family to sit down. Her mother is frightened and so is her younger brother. The father has a gun and tells the family with all his anger to get in the car, they are leaving that night to get away from 'the feeders'. The feeders are apparently on their way and yet, our main character can't take it. She lunges for her father and the gun goes off - a red pool forming on her mother's stomach, the bullet having gone past - but cutting our main character. The writer is something of a strange one because there is basically no atmosphere as this happens. There's tension but there's no atmosphere.

Yes, her kidnapper is her father but that isn't the spoiler. The spoiler is something else entirely that I'm not going to reveal here. As we see this character start to obsess over small details, sink deeper into painkiller withdrawal and try to make random breaks for it - there is something clearly not quite right happening in the world at the moment. Maybe people aren't crazy conspiracy theorists after all. There's so many questions in this book but I have to applaud the writer's attempt to make this almost post-apocalyptic book both fast-paced and atmospheric as hell. It's written in a way that feels short and bursting, but is actually filled with philosophy and depth, especially when we see our main character try to come off painkillers.

Atop of this we have the lore of the 'feeders'. I'm not going to lie, it's not everyday we see good lore in these type of novels and well, I was quite surprised when the lore was deep, meaningful and had an extended metaphor (I believe) that I won't tell you about because I want you to discover it for yourself.

I'm also going to say that usually, I don't like books that are so dialogue heavy or reliant on dialogue to help us understand the story, it's just not my thing. But with the visual descriptions, I think it really works in this book because it balances out well. I feel like the dialogue often gives us insights into the storyline and the descriptions give us insight into the headspace of the characters, especially Brynn - our main character.

All in all, I found this book a lot of fun. It took me only one night to read and though I don't normally go for monster/creature-based horror fiction, this one was recommended over and over so I couldn't ignore it. It was a great and bumpy ride - if you know what I mean.