“Right from the very first page you’re drawn into the dark atmosphere of the world. There’s an expectant menace in every situation. . . Surprisingly, this is the author’s first novel and on this evidence I’d say dark fiction has a new rising star.” —British Fantasy society Every tree in the sacred Forest of Laida houses a soul. And each of those souls will return to the mortal world for many … mortal world for many future lives. But not all of them deserve to.
Seycia’s father told her this story as a child—a story of the most holy place in the Underworld, the Forest of Laida, where all souls go to rest before embarking on a new life. But Seycia’s father is dead now, and his killer has put a target on her back.
After she is chosen for her village’s human sacrifice ritual, Seycia is transported to the Underworld and must join forces with Haben, the demon to whom she was sacrificed. Together, they journey to the forest in the Underworld where all souls grow in a quest to destroy the tree of the man who killed her.
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The Phantom Forest is an excellent debut novel, with some good characters and situations, and an interesting premise. It’s something of a page-turner and really pulls you into the story. I’m looking forward to this authors next book.
The Phantom Forest is a really creative look at both a dystopian Earth and the after life. Unfortunately I felt kind of out of my depth and confused throughout the first third or so. Although the lore is really in-depth I thought it wasn’t explained too well until about halfway through. In addition, there was a lot of “telling” not showing which I detracted from the unique world.and premise. Hopefully if there’s any additional novels those aspects improve so the creativity can really shine!
This was a good dystopian book. I like that it reveals the cause of the dystopian change in the world. The relationship between the orphaned brother and sister was realistic and well-written. It’s a tragedy in that a main character dies (though that’s not the end of the person’s story, not by far). The book is somewhat realistic fiction, as it’s easy to imagine this happening to our world. There’s a thin layer of romance. There was a good amount of plot twists, and the story felt original.
In this story, the “afterlife” has been discovered. Religion is outlawed because it caused too many wars (as a result of evidence proving what is “accurate”). “Why didn’t they just stop when they saw they’d destroyed everything?” That’s a deep, philosophical question. What’s especially interesting about this book is the author’s creation of the underworld. The description of the underworld was haunting at times. The religious aspects may be controversial for some people.
“The emblem looked like a piece of fruit someone had taken a bite out of.” That’s a great way to show a future with a Mac product that people don’t recognize anymore, showing it’s our same world but in a broken future. It reminds me of how Divergent and Red Queen revealed the same truth. Books like this are in my favorite genre.
Thinking of the stars as guns was an unusual spin. “He pictured a million tiny guns all hanging in the heavens, pointed at the earth, ready to rain down fire at any moment.”
My favorite character was Irem, a mute goddess. “It’s as if Dohv cut the cord between her mind and her lips.” Representation for those who can’t speak is so important. There’s also a similarity between her and the legend of Cassandra, the princesses of Troy. Can everyone be redeemed if they truly make the choice to change? That seems to be the main theme. The book wraps up the story, while also leaving an easy opening for a sequel. I received a free ARC in exchange for my honest review. I do not know the author, but will be interviewing for a blog post later.
My feelings are very mixed in this book. I struggle a lot to get through the first half, I found the second half kind of better, but I only really enjoyed the last 20%.
The world was by far the best part of this book. Hundreds of years ago humans discovered something they weren’t supposed to, the Underworld. Things there are very scary, but above the ground things aren’t good either. The Underworld was a rich and interesting place, I enjoyed discovering new places and learning about their secrets. The human world had changed a lot after the discovery and let’s just say it’s not the best place to live.
As much work went into the world-building, the complete opposite went to the characters. The characters to me felt so poorly developed, that I had to really force my self to keep reading because I didn’t care even the tiniest bit about them. Haben was probably the most interesting character of all, but still, it took me ages to start caring for me. Seycia had zero personality, the two villains of the story had more than her but she is the one that supposed to be the main character not them. In the end I started liking them at about the last 20%, when they started to show more of their character.
The plot was good enough, it’s just that the characters didn’t help to make this book as interesting as it could be. Overall great world-building, pretty good plot and not so great character development. I ended up giving this 3-stars instead of 2 that I initially thought I would because I enjoyed the world and the last quarter of the book, which of course it still doesn’t make a very good book.