"The human spirit didn’t drown. It was swept up and carried along; it flows still, the stream coursing its way through everyone’s lives."

I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Disney-Hyperion. Spoilers will be clearly marked. Trigger warnings: death, suicide, suicidal thoughts, drowning, violence, injury, blood, abduction, mental illness, depression, claustrophobia.

It’s been over a generation since the world flooded, forcing humans to retreat a thousand feet below the ocean’s surface for survival. It’s the only world Leyla McQueen has ever known, but she’s hopeful along with the rest of the population of Great Britain that humans will someday return to the surface. However, they’re plagued by Anthropoid attacks, a race of technologically engineered superhumans who can survive deep under the water. When her father is arrested under charges of aiding Seasickness victims in taking their own lives, Leyla is sure the accusations are false. She’s determined to win the London Submersible Marathon, which grants the winner a wish of their choice, to free her father. But when the plan goes awry, Leyla flees London to search for her father accompanied by a family friend whose secrets might jeopardize her quest–and their lives.

The main appeal of this book for me is the world-building, and I would recommend it on that alone. Shah has created a fascinating new world where humans live beneath the ocean in carefully pressurized homes and travel around in submersibles instead of cars. It’s weirdly nostalgic, since the population there is obsessed with preserving land memorabilia (we’re all little mermaids at heart, I guess). I could wax poetic for the rest of this review on the cool technological details and the lovely/terrifying ocean descriptions, but I won’t. Like the residents of this strange world, I was never able to forget that the characters are under a thousand feet of water, and it makes the atmosphere both captivating and unsettling. I’ve never read anything else quite like it.

It’s not as strong in other areas. I like Leyla, but she suffers from a lot of the same characteristics as every other YA heroine I’ve ever met. She’s referred to as stubborn, brave, and headstrong, but what she really does is charge headfirst into every situation with few plans or information, and her recklessness at one point costs lives. (But keep in mind, I’m well outside the target audience, and this might appeal fine to teenagers.) I do like that Leyla is a POC and Muslim, which is some cool representation that we don’t get enough of in fiction. Her love interest is also a POC (great), but he’s about as broody, distant, and chiseled as every YA male hero ever. Really, the descriptions of his eyes, and hair, and face are excessive. I very much didn’t enjoy the tiresome ‘he’s so annoying, I hate him’ routine that Leyla goes through before she realizes she likes him, but I generally have attitude about romances.

Plotwise, the book is a lot of fun, and it alternates some very tense scenes like Leyla’s submersible race and a couple of Anthropoid attacks with slower character and world-building. The government conspiracy trope is overdone, and the book doesn’t have a lot new to offer in the way of dystopias. Though the major plot wraps up to satisfaction while leaving a number of threads open for future exploration, I didn’t love the ending. I don’t enjoy cliffhangers, and Leyla never takes responsibility for some of the things that go down, but there’s time for that in later books. I probably won’t continue with the series, but I wouldn’t discourage anyone from picking it up if it sounds interesting. It holds its own.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. TURN BACK BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.

Really? That last chapter? We couldn’t leave things happy for five minutes? My knee-jerk reaction to being so blatantly manipulated into reading the sequel is to nope out of that quick. I like to think things are my own idea.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an advance copy for me to read. I had a hard time starting this book. It just seemed to to be missing something. I am happy to say I kept reading it. Great story with twists that I saw coming but did not care. The only I could not understand was how the people lived under water. A little more explanation would have helped. Cannot wait for the next book.

This book was received as an ARC from Disney Book Group - Disney-Hyperion in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

After this book I was in complete shock! I was blown away by the concept of this book and the climax driven from the race really opened my eyes and brought a lot of things to light (literally!). I could see myself with Leyla and racing with the sea creatures in hopes of saving her father who has been arrested. Then during the race especially when the prize will be whatever the winner desires granted by the prime minister. Then things take an unexpected turn as twists and turns start to emerge and things go out of left field for Leyla and she has to make the toughest decision ever that could cost her father's life. This book will leave you at the edge of your seat and leave you speechless at the end. I could see a potential series here and if it does form, I know our teen book club will go crazy for it.

We will consider adding this title to our YFiction collection at the library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

This is a soft three stars for a book that never managed to make it past “just okay”.

“Light at the Bottom of the World” is set in a world that exists long after the sea swallowed the shore with Layla terrified of what lies within the waters but desperate to figure out what became of her missing father. When the opportunity presents itself to win a race through Old World London in exchange for a prize that can be whatever the winner desires, Layla must put her fear aside and leave her home only to uncover that sometimes the cruelest of enemies are the ones that walk beside her.

I don’t know what I really expected from this book as every time I got excited about where it was heading it would wrap up too quickly before moving on only to deliver a pretty basic plot.

There was a lot to this world I enjoyed beginning with the way humans managed to live at the bottom of the ocean and the sci fi elements that masked this achievement by making everyone nostalgic for a world that no longer existed and created villains that were the perfect scapegoat for a much larger foe but the lead characters themselves never managed to rise to that level of writing.

I couldn’t tell you how old Layla was even though I’m sure it’s mentioned because for a good portion of the book she came across as much younger which I was willing to give a pass to seeing as her being sheltered was a huge part of her journey but I was never able to connect to her and her quest in the way I’m sure I was supposed to. Ari was another character who I had issues with as you can figure him, and ultimately all the plot twists, out only a few pages after his introduction.

While I do believe a lot of people will enjoy this book it is unfortunately not a series I plan on exploring further.

**special thanks to the publisher and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I really loved this watery adventure. Leyla is a great determined character and the questions it raised about fear and bigotry were very well done

The Light at the Bottom of the World had me from the synopsis wanting to jump right in and devour this book but right from the start something just felt off. The beginning felt jumbled, I had to stop and start multiple times and from there it didn’t get much better, I do hope there will need to be some major editing done before the release and maybe that was part of my problem with reading. The story had so much potential, its 2099 and the world is underwater. Maybe this book will be for you but it just didn’t excite me or make me want to read the next book.

I was provided with an electronic ARC by Disney-Hyperion through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fun, middle-grade sci-fi novel with some much needed diversity.

After a cataclysmic event, the oceans have risen to cover everything except mountain peaks and the air is toxic to breathe. Now, decades later, humanity has eked out an uneasy balance with the water by living under the sea in sealed buildings.

Leyla is a talented submersible racer barely getting by. Her earnings are dedicated to lawyer fees and other expenses in the hopes of winning her father's release-- he was arrested under mysterious circumstances months back.

When she unexpectedly wins a raffle to compete in the annual London submersible race, she realizes that the grand prize may be her only chance to request her father's release. This is only the beginning of Leyla's adventure, which will take her to the darkest and most secret reaches of the ocean.

There are a lot of great bits in here. In no particular order:
-Leyla is a devout Muslim and of Afghan descent. This was really cool-- I love seeing sci-fi/fantasy where the default isn't white and Christian.
-Leyla has strong bonds with a lot of people, including her good friends Theo and Tabby and her family. While I wish the secondary characters were more distinct (I'll address that a bit more later), it was really refreshing to have a protagonist with such close bonds.
-There are some beautiful descriptions-- I loved the submarine in particular. I've never wanted a submarine, but I do now!
-Oscar Wilde. I suspect a real Oscar Wilde would be far more sarcastic and far less nice, but I concede that he would make a delightful skin for software.

What I wish had been better:
-Despite the great descriptions, the writing really needed some more polishing and maybe a firmer hand from an editor. It's how scenes flow from one to another, how characters move in space, and how they interact.
-Along similar lines, most of the characters sound the same as though they were the same person. I'm not looking for ridiculous accents, but more variety in sentence structure and word choices would be welcome.
-As a result of both of these things, this felt more like something intended for a young crowd.
-I predicted several plot twists-- the Anthropoids in particular-- so I wish these had been a little more subtle.

It’s the end of the 21st century in this Sci-Fi adventure and the entire world lives underwater. Leyla, a British Muslim, lives in London. Her father’s been arrested and she will do anything to set him free. A submersible racer, Leyla gets her chance to race in the annual marathon. If she wins, she can free her father. Or so she thinks. Soon, she discovers the government is much more corrupt than she ever could have realized. She goes on a deep-sea quest to leave London and save her father, all with the help of Ari, a boy she barely knows but sent by her grandfather to protect her. In the deep seas, Leyla and Ari face unknown sea creatures, a corrupt government that chases them, and the frightening anthropoids (a new human species created in the Old World that are stronger and can breathe underwater) who are terrorizing the New World.

Meanwhile, there are serious other dangers humans face like the seasickness. Some people lose their minds with the old world nostalgia of living above the surface and kill themselves. The themes of moving forward versus looking back play out well in the story. Leyla is also an interesting protagonist. Not only is she a Muslim of strong faith, but she’s also of Afghan descent which definitely stands out in a Sci-Fi novel. I don’t think I have seen this before but the diversity is fantastic and is a true representation of London. Plus, Leyla is great. She’s brave, naive, and stubborn, all traits that make her feel human. Furthermore, the imaginative world-building and very real suspense (one scene like actually scared me) made for an engrossing book. I liked the romance too but I don’t want to say anything more about that without giving away spoilers. I would love to see this diverse and entertaining Sci-Fi receive more attention. Definitely worth reading!

"The Light at the Bottom of the World" is a total page-turner!
In the year 2099, no one lives above the surface. An asteroid hit Earth, sending the world beneath the ocean. London still thrives, albeit with ruins of St. Paul's, Big Ben, and all the historical sites. The government promises Britons that they'll return to the surface soon. In the meantime, 16-year-old Leyla McQueen competes in the London Submersible Marathon in hopes of winning her prize of choice: freeing her wrongfully imprisoned father.
Little does Leyla know that there are larger and more sinister forces at play.
This book is an excellent dystopia/post-apocalyptic fiction for our times. At its core, "Light" is a political conspiracy thriller. A corrupt government, the profiling and Othering of peoples, and nostalgia for days that might not have ever existed - London Shah's debut is a very necessary read for 2019.
Leyla is a great protagonist and I really related to her when she was frustrated with people making decisions for her, instead of trusting her. Also relatable was how Leyla evolved over time in her thinking with regards to the government and the veracity of "facts" and "truth." I look forward to seeing how she develops in the sequel. Some of the prose was a bit awkward but did not take away from the story. "Light" had several twists throughout the story that I never saw coming. I would like to see further development of some of the secondary characters (Theo, Tabby, Charlie) and more JoJo! I eagerly look forward to the conclusion of the duology.

Thank you to NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.