{"id":5913,"date":"2026-03-26T01:53:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5913"},"modified":"2026-03-26T01:53:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:53:44","slug":"beneath-by-ariel-sullivan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5913","title":{"rendered":"Beneath by Ariel Sullivan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Six years after nuclear war turned the surface into irradiated wasteland, what remains of humanity exists underground in a place called Haven. The tunnels are dim. Time is tracked not by sunlight but by bells and buzzes. Religion has largely given up alongside everything else.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This is the world Ariel Sullivan constructs in Beneath by Ariel Sullivan<\/em> \u2014 not as backdrop but as pressure. It presses down on every character, every decision, every carefully managed calorie. Haven operates through five sectors, each assigned a color-coded identification band: dark blue for the Force, white for the Hospital Ward, green for the Kitchens, black for Sanitation, gray for Expansion. Health scores determine who receives medical care and who is quietly abandoned. It is a grim, efficient system, and Sullivan renders it with the specificity of someone who has thought hard about how people actually behave when survival becomes arithmetic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Readers who came through Conform<\/em> \u2014 the first published book in Sullivan\u2019s series, set chronologically after these events and released in 2025 \u2014 will recognize the earliest, darkest seeds of the Illum order taking shape. Newcomers will find Beneath<\/em> fully immersive on its own terms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sasha Cadell: Death\u2019s Angel, Reluctant<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sasha is twenty-three and done. Done with the Hospital Ward, where she worked for years sitting beside patients the doctors had already written off. Done with the nickname \u2014 Death\u2019s Angel \u2014 that followed her because she could sit with dying strangers without flinching and without catching whatever claimed them. Now she swings a pickax in Expansion, strikes dirt until the rest of the world quiets, and calls it a wonderful, monotonous existence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She is lying to herself. Sullivan lets us know this immediately and then spends the entire novel carefully unpacking why.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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What elevates Beneath by Ariel Sullivan<\/em> above the average dystopian entry is its commitment to Sasha as a psychological portrait rather than a genre vehicle. Her damage is layered and internally consistent. The walls she has built \u2014 around grief, around maternal abandonment, around survivor\u2019s guilt \u2014 are not plot obstacles. They are<\/em> the plot. Watching Sasha resist, deflect, self-sabotage, and occasionally, with enormous effort, let someone in is the emotional architecture the novel rests on. Her arc moves slowly and realistically. That is precisely why it lands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tristian Hayes and the Long Road to Trust<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Unit Commander Tristian Hayes has been trying to recruit Sasha for months before the story begins. He is persistent. He is also genuinely decent \u2014 loyal to his unit in ways that border on obsessive, honest to the point of disarming, and possessed of a life force that feels almost transgressive in an underground world built on attrition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The slow burn between Sasha and Tristian is Beneath by Ariel Sullivan<\/em> at its most compelling. Sullivan doesn\u2019t rush it and doesn\u2019t dramatize it artificially. Their tension builds through small moments \u2014 a nutrient paste offered during lockdown, a rifle correction in a dim training room, a hand that lingers. The restraint is intentional and effective. Readers who need their romance fast-moving should prepare: this is warmth earned one degree at a time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Found Family at the End of the World<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Unit Seven \u2014 Levi, Rumi, Patrick, Ingrid, Isla, and Damien \u2014 is one of the novel\u2019s most quietly accomplished elements. Each member carries their own history, their own grief, their own loyalty. Sullivan avoids making them feel like orbit-characters. They argue, protect, defer, and push back. Their bond, and how it\u2019s tested in the novel\u2019s second half, gives the stakes personal weight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Key pleasures of Unit Seven:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Levi\u2019s steadiness as Sasha\u2019s assigned partner \u2014 patient, perceptive, and unflinching
\nRumi\u2019s sharp intelligence, always several moves ahead of everyone else
\nPatrick\u2019s faith, worn openly, functioning as both anchor and counterweight
\nDamien\u2019s sardonic humor masking something the others quietly guard
\nIngrid\u2019s grief \u2014 raw and unresolved \u2014 creating necessary friction throughout<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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These are not characters. They are people who happen to be in a novel, and the difference matters enormously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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What Doesn\u2019t Quite Surface<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sullivan\u2019s novel earns its praise cleanly. A few caveats remain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Pacing.<\/strong> The middle section \u2014 covering training sequences and political maneuvering within the Force \u2014 loses momentum in places. Sullivan is building slowly, deliberately, and the emotional payoff ultimately justifies the patience required. But some scenes hold their rhythm a beat too long before things accelerate again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Jaxon complication.<\/strong> Sasha\u2019s history-adjacent entanglement introduces friction without adequate resolution within this book. His presence serves the larger architecture of the series, but his specific arc here reads more like setup than payoff.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The prequel paradox.<\/strong> Readers arriving from Conform<\/em> face a mild structural challenge: some revelations carry less weight when you already know the general shape of what follows. This is a consequence of Sullivan\u2019s unconventional \u201cdueling trilogy\u201d approach, not a failure of craft. But it affects the texture of discovery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The ending.<\/strong> This book closes in the middle of something \u2014 deliberately, with real skill behind the placement. Readers who need closure should know that Core<\/em>, Book 2 in the Conform series, is where that arrives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Prose, the Grief, and the Thing Beneath<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sullivan writes interiority the way Sasha swings her pickax \u2014 controlled repetition that accumulates weight. Sentences are often short, punchy, declarative. Emotional passages stretch longer, unspooling against the brevity like something finally breaking. The style is calibrated to its subject: a woman at war with herself, in a world at war with everyone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Beneath by Ariel Sullivan<\/em> engages openly with depression and grief<\/a> \u2014 not as metaphor but as lived condition, present in every chapter. This is handled with genuine care and, from the author\u2019s own acknowledgments, deep personal investment. It lifts the book well clear of standard genre territory and into something more lasting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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About the Conform Series<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Beneath<\/em> is Book 0. Conform<\/em><\/a> (2025) is Book 1, set chronologically after these events but published first \u2014 a structurally bold choice that rewards readers willing to follow the author\u2019s intent. Core<\/em> is forthcoming as Book 2.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Read These Next<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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If Beneath by Ariel Sullivan<\/em> resonates, these titles occupy similar emotional and genre territory:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Red Rising<\/em> by Pierce Brown \u2014 underground resistance, hierarchical brutality, slow-earned trust
\nAn Ember in the Ashes<\/em> by Sabaa Tahir \u2014 military training, moral ambiguity, devastating romance
\nShatter Me<\/em> by Tahereh Mafi \u2014 interior narration, a damaged woman learning her own worth
\nLegend<\/em> by Marie Lu \u2014 dystopian survival, restrained romance, propulsive pacing
\nThe Hunger Games<\/em> by Suzanne Collins \u2014 societal control, survival stakes, a woman who carries everything
\nA Court of Thorns and Roses<\/em><\/a> by Sarah J. Maas \u2014 slow burn done right, emotionally complex leads<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Beneath<\/em> asks what survival costs a person \u2014 and whether what remains is still worth living for. Sullivan\u2019s answer arrives slowly, painfully, and with more tenderness than the world it inhabits deserves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Six years after nuclear war turned the surface into irradiated wasteland, what remains of humanity exists underground in a place called Haven. The tunnels are dim. Time is tracked not by sunlight but by bells and buzzes. Religion has largely given up alongside everything else. This is the world Ariel Sullivan constructs in Beneath by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5913"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}