What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
Publication Date: October 6th, 2026
Bindery Books
256 pages. Hardcover.
About What Feeds Below:
"'Lush and innovative worldbuilding, gruesome body horror . . . A nail-biting tale set in a beautifully rendered world of darkness and danger' - Starred Kirkus Review
The darkness isn’t empty. It’s hungry.
At the edge of the City of the Void, a massive chasm extends miles into the earth, its treacherous terrain overrun with vicious monsters and carnivorous plants. For orphaned best friends Petra and Jade, guiding treasure-seeking tourists down into the Void is the only way to earn enough to pull themselves up out of the slums for good.
Petra prefers to play it safe and take jobs only in the Void’s upper levels, where the dangers are better understood, while Jade wants to risk a descent to the deepest and most mysterious Sixth Layer. Because the deeper they go, the better the payout, and the sooner their dreams can become reality. Their friendship is Petra’s whole world, and Jade’s approval means everything—so Petra agrees to do it Jade’s way.
When their job goes wrong and Jade is lost in the Void, Petra must plunge deeper than she’s ever dared to save her friend. But she doesn’t know the truth of the Void . . . or what really waits for her in its depths."
What Feeds Below is a book that sat very vividly in my mind the entire time I was reading it, and I think it will continue to linger in the back of my mind to remind me of all the disturbing and not okay things I just read about--but that I enjoyed every minute of!
In What Feeds Below, we follow Petra, a Void Diver, who regularly traverses the depths (well, several layers of the depths up until the events of this book) to take tourists on excursions to see the deep, dark insides of the Void in order to attempt to save up enough money to open her own clinic one day and help people.
Our story begins when Petra and her diving partner/best friend/almost sister Jade take a client on a trip into the Void, only this time they're going a little deeper than they have before. Unfortunately, things don't go according to plan (who could've guessed?) and Petra and Jade end up separated, which ultimately forces Petra to go deeper into the Void than she ever has before to try to save her. And... well, you'll see what chaos happens after that.
I generally liked Petra as a protagonist, though I can't say she really stood out to me all that much initially. I was slightly more interested in following along with her journey through the plot rather than in her as a character, but as the story progressed, I found myself connecting with her more at various points. By the end, I actually found myself feeling a little emotional during one of the bigger climactic moments, as it felt eerily relatable (thematically, of course).
The Void is a character in itself and I was almost immediately obsessed with finding out more about it. It sounds pretty terrifying, to be completely honest, so I don't think I would be one of the those tourists paying money to delve down into its depths, but I would certainly live vicariously through the experiences of others who are, uh, braver, than I am. A journey into endless terrors is something I think I can probably live with out, all things considered.
I liked the idea of each layer being more deadly or mysterious than the last, but honestly I think they all seem quite deadly across the board. I think the fact that the deeper layers are simple less explored is a big park of what makes them so much frightening, and understandably so. I think what I enjoyed the most--and what made me slightly concerned for our dear author--was how there was truly no shortage of horrifying imaginative ideas about what lurks in the Void. There are some unique, grotesque, terrifying creatures and elements in each layer, and just when you think, "okay, that one was pretty intense," you turn the corner and there's something even more chaotic and crazy that you couldn't have predicted.
And with that comes what I think is one of Schlote-Bonne's great strengths: her descriptive imagery and ability to make you truly imagine the horrors our characters are experiencing. I could vividly imagine (unfortunately) the gross, frightening things that happened to people and other creatures throughout this journey, much as I might have preferred not to. It was incredibly immersive and I was really impressed with the author's ability to make me feel so thoroughly immersed in this world. And despite the fact that I've been calling things horrifying and grotesque, there's a strange beauty to the Void that I think Petra is a bit captivated by at times and that I definitely understand. An alien world of any kind is fascinating and brings with it many things to appreciate and be curious about.
There are a number of themes explored in this book, but I particularly appreciated the exploration of understand who you're doing things for, whether you're being true to yourself or living your life for someone else, and what that means for your own life and future. This idea of doing things for other people and not yourself really resonated with me. We can give so much of ourselves and our lives and time to people without ever realizing it might not be what we've wanted for ourselves.
The ending is perfectly fitting, and I want to say so much about it, but in order to avoid giving anything away, I will refrain from saying anything more. If anyone wants to chat about it, though, feel free to reach out!
I think this is classified as YA, and I would mainly say the part that feels YA is with the characters themselves due to their ages and their maturity levels. I do feel that you could tell they were younger, and the ways in which they acted with other characters felt like younger people who are still maturing emotionally and trying to understand the world. I personally found the dynamics between Jade and Petra and then Jade, Petra, and Flint slightly familiar and predictable, which made me slightly frustrated with their actions at times, but the story around it was still captivating enough that this didn't end up bothering me overly much.
The content itself could easily fit into adult or YA horror (specifically body horror), and I think some of the imagery will haunt anyone at any age. I don't think that's a problem for YA, either, as sometimes life truly is just horrific and there are horrors we may face at any age. Still, do be mindful going into this one that the body is very present.
Overall, What Feeds Below is a fantastic read for the spooky season, and any horror fan--especially those of the body horror fan variety--will definitely want to check this one out.
Buy the book: Amazon | Bookshop.org
