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Undergrowth

Chel Hylott,

Chelsea Lim

3.06 · Rating details · 18 ratings · 14 reviews

Seventeen-year-old Mariam has been mixed up with the supernatural since she was a kid. Between a half-rotting Beast showing up in her dad’s study when she was six years old and the fact that she can’t die, it doesn’t come as too much of a shock when drought-ridden Los Angeles turns into a sentient, carnivorous rainforest overnight.

The tedium of wandering through a ruined ...more

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Published December 9th 2019 by NineStar Press

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Average rating 3.06 ·

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· 18 ratings · 14 reviews

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Dec 04, 2019 Lex Kent rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: apocalyptic, f-f-ninestar-press, f-f-paranormal, ya-or-na

I read this book last night but felt like I needed the extra time to process the book before I wrote a review. This is a bit of an oddball book. It’s a YA, apocalyptic book with a paranormal twist. There is so much cli-fi nowadays, climate based fiction, that you don’t see paranormal influencing apocalypses as much. I actually liked this mix and I enjoyed that parts of the story felt fresh. There was a lot of potential here but I don’t think everything came together.

Miriam is not your normal 17 I read this book last night but felt like I needed the extra time to process the book before I wrote a review. This is a bit of an oddball book. It’s a YA, apocalyptic book with a paranormal twist. There is so much cli-fi nowadays, climate based fiction, that you don’t see paranormal influencing apocalypses as much. I actually liked this mix and I enjoyed that parts of the story felt fresh. There was a lot of potential here but I don’t think everything came together.

Miriam is not your normal 17 year old. Besides that fact that she has seen a monster, she also can’t be killed. She can be hurt but she always heals. While it makes her completely different than everyone else, it is not a bad trait to have when you find yourself in the middle of an apocalypse. L.A. has been taken over by deadly vegetation and animals and there are fewer survivors every day. Miriam thinks she should keep going it alone but when she meets a group of survivors, including Camila who Miriam can’t help but have a little crush, Miriam realizes being alone might not be the way to survive after all.

I liked the set-up of the book. A jungle like LA with poisoned plants that have a mind of their own and vicious moneys that could easily kill, I like that this is not the normal apocalypse world. I think the main issue for me was the length of this book. I think it was too short for this type of story. There is so much going on and trying to pack so much in, there just wasn’t enough details for me to feel really immersed. I got the setting since that was well done, but easier questions like even knowing how long this new world has been going on for I don’t know. One point it seemed like weeks, and then it was months and months? The characters themselves were fine and reasonably likeable but again there wasn’t enough details about them. Unless I missed it but I don’t think the main character’s age was ever mentioned. I just saw that she was 17 from the book blurb. I was guessing she was maybe 19 or 21. It was hard to have clear pictures in my mind of what most of the characters even looked like.

It’s sometimes hard to put into words why a book does or doesn’t work for us readers. I am struggling a bit here. This wasn’t bad, it was easy to read and I was entertained, it was just missing something to make me emotionally connected. In an apocalyptic book I want to worry than any character could die at any time. The problem here was I don’t think I was connected enough to really care if that happened or not. There were lots of good ideas here but I can’t say that this was any better than just okay. As far as I know this is a debut for the author. I think she shows some potential so I would be willing to give her another chance.

An ARC was given to me for a honest review.
...more

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Jan 05, 2020 Sheena ☆ Oh, the Sheenanigans! rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley, arcs-ebook, death, diverse-or-poc, friends-to-lovers, paranormal-supernatural-romance, paranormal-supernatural, romance, beam-me-up-scotty, single-or-divorce-parents

Very much what was notated from a reviewer, "Undergrowth" fell under the Young Adult category that held apocalyptic, science fiction, and paranormal elements in which case I initially thought that the set-up would win me over but that's a big fat nope.

There were far more underlying issues and hiccups than I hadn't expected along the way that made this a less than satisfactory read. It was like too much happening at the same time compact under two hundred pages with Miriam a ...more

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Dec 03, 2019 Colleen Corgel rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, science-fiction, young-adult, arc, urban-fantasy

I really wanted to give this more stars, but while there is a lot of stuff here that could make for a really epic novel, there are too many hiccups along the way to make this one good. I'd say that for some folks, this will be a perfectly serviceable light read that doesn't get too bogged down in it's own lore, but for me, that's one of the biggest thing that's missing.

The book follows Miriam as she navigates the jungle apocalypse. It seems like a sentient jungle has sprouted up in the Southern I really wanted to give this more stars, but while there is a lot of stuff here that could make for a really epic novel, there are too many hiccups along the way to make this one good. I'd say that for some folks, this will be a perfectly serviceable light read that doesn't get too bogged down in it's own lore, but for me, that's one of the biggest thing that's missing.

The book follows Miriam as she navigates the jungle apocalypse. It seems like a sentient jungle has sprouted up in the Southern California region, near Los Angeles. The plants have killed almost everyone in sight, and the survivors are stuck navigating through an ecosystem that's actively trying to kill them. Miriam has some secrets that she has to keep from a plucky band of survivors she meets, despite her growing attached to all the people in the group. Unfortunately for her, one of those secrets has decided that the group is expendable, and has focused the forest's anger on them.

I enjoyed the characters, and was disappointed that there wasn't much time to get to know most of them better. Some of their dramatic scenes seemed to come from nowhere, only to be explained after, so it felt a little forced. It's also a very diverse group, something that I'd expect from kids and and the two adults in the LA area. I loved the whole concept of an apocalypse started by a magic forest erupting in a desert and murdering people. But there's just too much mystery that it does get confusing with regards to the timeline. Like there's no real clue as to when it started, so we don't know how long everyone has managed to escape death. For some folks, this might not be that much of an issue, because the narrative does focus more on Miriam and the survivors, but it does go into some of the beginnings of the murder forest, and that's when it gets frustrating.

So, while I loved the concept of the book, and parts of it were great, I thought it just had problems with its execution. I think this mostly has to do with its page count, as a lot of plot related stuff is touched on, but not enough to give an impact on the story. It glosses over too many details that would seem important to the action. I really wish there was more meat on this one, because I think it would benefit from it.

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review. ...more

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Dec 11, 2019 XR rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019

This was odd but I liked it.

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Jan 22, 2020 Joyfully Jay rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: elizabeth

A Joyfully Jay review.

3.75 stars

There is a great deal of atmosphere in this book, but so much of the story is the idea of the setting and the inference of the reader. Months pass between our first introduction to Mariam and the end of the story, and in that time there are a handful of interactions. We don’t see Mariam get closer to the other survivors, don’t really see her relationship with Camila deepen. We see the two of them acting as though they’ve been friends, and have to assume that that ...more

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Dec 06, 2019 Moony (The Burglar Baggins) MeowPoff rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This book wasn't too fun for me. It was hard to like any characters and i ended up skimming most of the book. Sadly. ...more

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Oct 04, 2020 E rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A fresh blend of fantasy, dystopia, and horror.

Undergrowth is a fantastically fresh blend of fantasy, dystopia, and horror. Los Angeles turns into a thick, terrible jungle overnight, filled with sentient vines and terrifying creatures, hell bent on the imprisonment and destruction of its inhabitants.

We follow the main character, Mariam, (a badass wlw with a hachet, which is hot af) as she navigates the terrain and tries to escape the jungle, coming across a band of survivors who she quickly set ...more

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Feb 07, 2020 Azu rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, lgbt, lgbt-f, net-galley, young-adult, sci-fi

Undergrowth is a strange one, difficult to categorize. It's YA mixed with science-fiction and paranormal.

Mariam, a seventeen-year-old girl, found herself in a difficult situation when a malicious rainforest grow overnight in Los Angeles. Scavenging abandoned stores to survive, she met a group of survivors with kids and can't resolve herself to leave them without her help... because Mariam has a secret of her own: since she's six-year-old, she's able to heal herself and will not die, whatever the ...more

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Dec 31, 2019 Evy rated it liked it · review of another edition

BOOK REVIEW

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

I received a free eARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ok, this book was mostly a miss for me. I was not a fan of it throughout the entire story and I found that a lot of the plot points happened much too fast for my liking. Overall the concept was good and so was the writing, but the execution wasn’t done in a way that I loved.

SPOILER-FREE SUMMARY
Between a half-rotting Beast showing up in her dad’s study when she was six years old and th BOOK REVIEW

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

I received a free eARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ok, this book was mostly a miss for me. I was not a fan of it throughout the entire story and I found that a lot of the plot points happened much too fast for my liking. Overall the concept was good and so was the writing, but the execution wasn’t done in a way that I loved.

SPOILER-FREE SUMMARY
Between a half-rotting Beast showing up in her dad’s study when she was six years old and the fact that she can’t die, it doesn’t come as too much of a shock to Seventeen-Year-Old Mariam when drought-ridden Los Angeles turns into a sentient, carnivorous rainforest overnight. The tedium of wandering through a ruined city filled with dead bodies is broken when she stumbles upon beautiful Camila and her ragtag crew of survivors. Mariam isn’t exactly altruist of the year, but her soft spot for kids means she can’t just leave them to fend for their own. She rescues them and decides to throw her lot in with theirs. Despite herself, she quickly becomes a part of their family. However, even as they all start feeling at home in their new vegetal world, sinister figures from Mariam’s past begin to reappear, and the whole hell-jungle situation begins to feel a lot more personal and Mariam is faced with a terrifying truth: she might have to betray someone to save the city and her new friends.

I thought the romance was rather fast paced, I found the story to be a little hard to follow and slightly confusing. I did really enjoy all of the characters in our main group though, and I enjoyed how representation was presented in this novel. I thought it was done really well. There was a plethora of awesome, multi-dimensional diverse characters and I loved that. There was just a lot about the story’s plot that I did not enjoy.

I would recommend you read this if you’re into dystopias, and novels with LGBT+ representation and dark fantasy themes. It was a good book and worth the read, just not one of my favorites. ...more

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Feb 11, 2020 Christine Librow0rm rated it it was ok

I didn’t finish this. DNF.
I struggled to get into the story, couldn’t empathise with the characters & was diverted to noting flaws rather than story. A shame, as this could be so much more.

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Aug 30, 2020 Mia rated it it was ok

DNF at 60%

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Dec 17, 2019 Books rated it it was ok

Whilst I really enjoyed the overall plot of the book and the dystopian jungle setting I felt this book moved way too fast to feel anything or really connect.

The plot is fast paced but to the point I felt things were skimmed over.

Because of this I feel like we also missed out on a good initial world and character building because it just jumps straight into the action. This might not be an issue for some that enjoy very fast paced, quick reads but I personally enjoy having a bit more of a connec ...more

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Dec 08, 2019 Jo Ladzinski rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: net-galley

Read an eARC from the authors

Undergrowth is a story about demons, killer foliage, and found family. Mariam is on the run from her dad in a Los Angeles overtaken by deadly vines. She finds herself entangled with a ragtag group of people looking for survival.

The relationship between Mariam and her father, Malik, really resonated with me. Through the lens of demonic sacrifices, the authors captured the messed up parental feels of "I did this for you whether you liked it or not" really resonated wit ...more

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