Note: The text in this book is quite large, quite dark, and visible through the page. While this is not the author's fault, it does make it a lot harder to read.
Overview
Raine in the Underlands (202pg) is a middle-grade fantasy novel following a ten-year-old girl called Raine.
After a mysterious man approaches Raine on the street outside her house and gifts her a toy monkey, she shoots a blue flame from her finger that breaks a window, and gets locked in the basement with all sorts of strange objects from her mum's past, she breaks through the wall into a strange world that will change everything she knows about herself.
Her dad is missing, her stepfather is awful, her mum is hiding all sorts of secrets, and no one wants to tell her anything. Now, all of a sudden, she's faced with a bunch of dragons telling her she has to save the world. Immediately. Accompanied only by her not-actually-a-toy monkey.
Rating and Review
I gave this book 2/5 stars.
When I first heard about this book, I thought it sounded great, and I still believe it had the opportunity to be great. This book had an interesting idea, fun characters, exciting creatures... but the execution was a bit messy. In saying that, I don't think this was a bad book, and it does have enjoyable moments, I just think it could have been a lot better, and a round of developmental editing would have done it a world of good.
But let's focus on what we do have.
Structure, flow, and scene pacing
There are many instances throughout this book that seem as though the author is opposed to flow-on sentences (the use of commas, conjunctions, all that good stuff). Instead, it would often have a full paragraph of sentences that are all quite short.
This short-sentence structure seems to be the standard writing style throughout the book, with occasional moments where the sentences flow.
The short-sentence structure is something that is often used to convey urgency, but that's not how it was always used. In fact, there were several points where this would have been a good option, but it was not used. Instead, there would be a high-stakes scene being slowed down by lengthy explanations, while slow scenes were made to feel clunky and unnatural with these shorter sentences. Think of a person taking a trip, but instead of consistent movements, there is a single step followed by a pause. A single step followed by a pause. A single step followed by a pause.
It feels like you're listing out your actions instead of telling the story.
Creatures and characters
In the first chapter, there is a creature described exactly the way you would expect a dragon to be described. You read this description, you know it's a dragon. But somehow this main character, despite being so into fairy tales and fantasy that she carries a book of stories around with her, is perplexed. She has no idea what these creatures in front of her are. Until a fair way into the book when her book falls open on a page with dragons and she's suddenly shocked and realises oh, they're dragons. She's a fantasy-obsessed kid who carries a book of fairy tales around, and you expect me to believe she didn't recognise a dragon?
On the subject of dragons, this particular group has been cursed and cannot breathe fire. But wait, when Raine tickles one of them so hard it laughs, they discover the dragons can fart fire. Never in my life did I expect to utter the words "Please, for the love of everything, do not tell me the good guys are going to win by farting on their enemies" but here we are.
Fairies who eat children and are allergic to happiness? Great concept. Loved that. Really, I was invested in that moment... until the part where they escaped. (Guess how.)
There were cyclopes, gnomes, trees that were kind of alive, and mentions of a few other creatures we don't get to see.
Sentence opener repetition
There were a few patches where half the sentences in the paragraph would start with the same word or similar words.
One example of this was a paragraph with five consecutive pronouns (she, her, she, she, she) followed by two other sentences, and then another two (she, she).
Another example of this is jumping between two character names. Most sentences in the paragraph will start with the name of one of these two characters, often the same character a couple of times in a row. On one occasion, three sentences in a row began with "Morrigan".
This, again, has an effect on the way readers process the text. It feels off, like it's trying to get a sentence out but keeps stuttering and starting over, rather than being a run of events.
Plot pacing
This entire book takes place over two days.
Raine is outside her house when a stranger shows up and gives her a "toy" monkey, her stepdad locks her in the basement, she rips a hole in the wall and falls into the Underlands, she wakes up after a nap to a bunch of dragons and her monkey saying "we were hoping to ease into this and train you, but oh well, you're here now, you've gotta go fight the evil witch", she starts the journey, they camp overnight, and the next morning the dragon who accompanied her says "You need to get to this place and fight the evil witch, and you need to get there while the sun is still up. I'm gonna skedaddle." and he just leaves her.
No further information, nothing about how to fight the witch, minimal backstory for why, absolutely no training, and no directions. This ten-year-old girl is going through a forest full of monsters, basically alone, without a map, in less than a day (because the dark witch is more powerful in the dark, and the army of creatures of darkness won't come out in the day).
The monkey, the dragons, and the stranger (a very powerful wizard) all have a lot of information that could help her, but they just keep avoiding questions and telling her nothing. She's able to learn a few things along the way, but only because she happens to run into the right creatures and narrowly avoids death a couple of times. These near-death situations involve her getting into something that might kill her, and anyone around her just sitting back to watch despite being fully aware it's something dangerous and only stepping in either at the last minute, or after she's figured it out and barely escaped.
Character development
As I've mentioned, Raine is ten, she's never heard anything about this world until now, but suddenly she's expected to kill this witch and save the world. On her own, with less than a day's notice.
She has no fight training, no magic training, and less than twenty-four hours of knowledge of this world or what is happening. But it's okay because she's not scared, and she's got a bit of a cocky attitude that will get her through (in an obnoxious way, not a badass way). She's also stating that she doesn't care if she dies or if something kills her, and has absolutely no problem with straight-up murdering someone she knows basically nothing about. Raine also spent the entire book whining about various things, then suddenly shifting to a hard character saying "I have to save the world, everything is up to me", which makes it worse than simply not being scared, because she's got these two very opposite themes and no consistency.
Sometimes it makes sense for a character to not be scared of anything, but without reasoning or flaws or some kind of crack in the surface, it just makes them feel flat and difficult to connect with. In those instances, it takes away from the authenticity of the character. This is exactly what happened with Raine.
Hinting and unanswered questions
There are at least two pieces left from this plot that were brought up once or twice, and never resolved. One of those was mentioned at the end, hinting at a sequel, but the other was left entirely open, just echoing in the reader's mind.
One of these things could have been better executed, but it worked.
But the other was unnecessary. It's something that should have either been properly addressed, or left out entirely to be used in a future novel. As it is, instead of feeling like an encouragement to continue reading, it puts pressure on the reader and comes across more as a demand.
There aren't many books where you can read the first line and have it accurately set your vibe for the whole book, but this was like that for me.
Content warnings
- Abuse/domestic violence
- Animal death
- Death
- Violence
- Depression and low self-worth
Who I’d recommend this to
If you're after a quick read with magic, dragons, and adventure, you could give this one a try.