The Threat Below – Jason Latshaw

(5 / 5)

What a fantastic surprise! What an ABSOLUTELY AWESOME book! When I first saw The Threat Below, I was apprehensive. There are SO many YA dystopian books out there. I wasn’t sure that this one was going to be much different than the rest. But with a whole lot of positive reviews, and thankfully a bit of time on my hands, I decided to give it a go. And I’m SO GLAD that I did! I had already decided on my top 5 books of the year, a list compiled in my head – awaiting December for me to put it together and blog it, not expecting the next month and a half to bring me anything worthy… Now its going to have to be changed! Yes, this book was THAT GOOD!!

Set in the distant future, Icelyn is the heir to Mountaintop, a place where the remaining existence of humanity lives high up on a mountain, separated from the world below. They are separated by a wall, and further below is a thick cloud covering that makes visualising the world below impossible. They have lived this way for hundreds of years. But now their water supply has been tainted, and people are dying. Someone has to go down below to save them all…

This wasn’t your typical YA dystopian book. It was EPIC. But so easy to read! Think The Silo Series by Hugh Howey, meets A Game of Thrones with a touch of The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes and a sprinkle of The Sparrow rolled into a fantastic YA read. But I don’t think this is just a YA Book! Even though the central characters are young, I am sure this book will be enjoyed by just about anyone!

This book captured me from the first chapter! What a fantastic premise! It has EVERYTHING! Excitement, action, adventure, un-worldly creatures, romance, power, betrayal, love, hate, violence, BEARS!! IT HAS BEARS!!! I could keep going!

The characters are FANTASTIC! Every one of them, from the dickheads up on Mountaintop, attempting to out play and our power each other… To the young ones stuck below cloudline. Each character brings a unique energy to the book. Usually quite a lot of characters in a book annoys me, mostly because I can’t keep up because I read so fast! I get confused with names and who is who when there is an abundance of characters. The only thing I got confused about at the beginning of this one was the difference between Torrain, Tranton and the Tarlinius, (All the T’s) but after it got going it didn’t take long at all to become engaged with EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER!

The book doesn’t go any way you expect it to and I love that. You have no idea what is waiting around the corner, all you know is that HAVE to see what’s waiting there!

The only thing I almost don’t like about this book, is the strange little almost love triangle thing that Icelyn has got between Ad and Torrain. I get that love triangles are often pivotal in most YA books… I understand why they appeal to younger audiences, what is more young adult than the perils of love?… And in this book it wasn’t too bad. Its just love triangles in general piss me off but I didn’t hate it enough to deduct stars from it, so that’s saying something.

Another thing that I feel doesn’t quite do the book justice is the cover. It just doesn’t really grab your attention. Honestly if it was based on the cover alone I wouldn’t have read it. I would hate to think that others are missing out on such a fantastic book because of it. Don’t get me wrong, its not a “bad” cover… It just lacks something for me. I know that when I first look at a book I only really take a quick glance at the cover. My initial feeling about this cover was “Meh…”. Also because the authors name is so big down the bottom (in plain font that again, doesn’t do the book justice) I didn’t even really look at what was behind it. I didn’t realise that there was a monster down there. It wasn’t until I read reviews and considered reading the book that I looked closer and realised that there was a monster down there and that were thick clouds below the mountain, not water or some kind of red sea. The cover can make or break a book, and this one doesn’t do it for me. However I loved the small illustrations at the start of each chapter that made it clear where the chapter was set.

Nevertheless, once you start the book you CANNOT stop. Or at least, I couldn’t. Thought it was absolutely fantastic! Loved the complex story and the relationships between all the characters and creatures. I thought it was truly original and undeniably worthy the whole 5 stars!

Would I recommend it?

ABSOLUTELY! Read it and tell me what you think of it! I’m DYING to discuss it with someone!

“Life is exactly what it is, and nothing more.”

Many thanks to author Jason Latshaw via WordSlinger for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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