Beyond the Shadowed Earth by Joanna Ruth Meyer | Book Review

Beyond the Shadowed Earth
by Joanna Ruth Meyer
Series: Beneath the Haunting Sea #2
Published on January 14, 2020 by Page Street
Format: ARC
Pages: 400
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

It has always been Eda’s dream to become empress, no matter the cost. Haunted by her ambition and selfishness, she’s convinced that the only way to achieve her goal is to barter with the gods. But all requests come with a price and Eda bargains away the soul of her best friend in exchange for the crown.

Years later, her hold on the empire begins to crumble and her best friend unexpectedly grows sick and dies. Gnawed by guilt and betrayal, Eda embarks on a harrowing journey to confront the very god who gave her the kingdom in the first place. However, she soon discovers that he’s trapped at the center of an otherworldly labyrinth and that her bargain with him is more complex than she ever could have imagined.

Set in the same universe as Joanna’s debut, Beneath the Haunting Sea, Beyond the Shadowed Earth combines her incredible world building and lush prose with a new, villainous lead.

Review

I’ve come to accept the fact that not every book can be great, or even good for that matter. But it’s still such a let down every time I go into a book, so excited and ready to love it, and then… I don’t Which is exactly what happened with Beyond the Shadowed Earth.

Now, this one wasn’t all bad, and I actually made myself push through to the end, but I like to save the good bits for last. End on a high note and what not. So let’s get down to exactly what I didn’t love.

First off, I feel that the summary for this book gave me a very wrong idea of what to expect. I thought I’d be reading about some grand adventure. Traveling across the empire to the dangerous mountain, fighting bad guys, freeing gods. But uh… nope. The adventuring doesn’t even start until over half way through the book. The whole first half is filled with politics and religion stuff. Which is fine, except that it’s not the book I was expecting and definitely not the book I wanted.

Despite the whole first half feeling like it was the beginning, I never felt that it used all that time to build anything up. The world-building was patchy, with some things presented vividly, other left vague. The result was what to me felt like a cookie cutter YA fantasy setting.

The characters fell equally flat for me. No one really stood out and grabbed my attention. The main character had her moments, and I thought her motivations were actually pretty cool and presented well. But honestly? I can’t even remember her name now. And the other characters were at about that same level of interesting for me.

Now, like I said, not all was bad! When the adventure did finally kick in it was really well done in part. Exciting and fun, more along the lines of what I’d been expecting from the book’s synopsis. The ending stretched things a bit in parts, which felt unnecessary, but the second half of the book was much more fun than the first. But it was just too little too late for me. I think that others could actually really enjoy this one, if they know what it is going to be going into it. Less adventure and more… other stuff. Unfortunately, I was really just expecting a different book than the one I got, which ultimately left me disappointed and wishing I’d picked something else to read.