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The Buried Reserve #3
Beyond
Audible Audio
Published March 15, 2024
6 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 21, 2025
I kind of want to mark this book two stars out of spite. It's 4 stars for the book but 1 star for the "ending" which isn't an ending at all. It doesn't even PRETEND to end by wrapping up a minor storyline. It just stops, right at the climax of the story! Seriously, wtf. And this audiobook is only about 4 hours long so TOTALLY this one and the next one should have just been one single book. Makes me frustrated at the author and the only motivation i can think of for this is to get more people to spend more money.
I wouldn't have been so annoyed if I hadn't paid $13 for it... which I wouldn't have had to except for timing. I had already decided to pause my Audible membership. I looked at my library to choose my next read. I didn't remember purchasing this one, but it looked good and it was short so I started it. And then when I was in the middle of it, my Audible membership expired and... the book disappeared. Turns out, I didn't remember purchasing it because I hadn't... it was a free perk with the membership.
But I was really enjoying the book! The world that Myers has created is really fascinating, with the government supporting a community of people who live completely underground, are told stories about "the above" that are untrue and scary to keep them there, and killing anyone who might be brave enough to get out and check what's up there so that their secret doesn't get out. The main character, Galia, is the child of two people who escaped from one such underground society in the mountains of Tennessee - she was brought up very sheltered and with no technology because of her parents past, but rebels and leaves home to go to college and learns to use tech and becomes an archivist at a library. Someone reaches out to her who claims to have info on another underground society and they begin investigating together. Simultaneously, we are getting the history of the community and its founders, starting in the early 1900s.
I also didn't realize when I started it that this is the third book in a series. This didn't matter - the author did a great job of giving just enough info at the beginning so we understand what is going on without having read the books and this story doesn't need the first two - but making me interested enough to potentially read them if I weren't so mad about this book not ending.
Interestingly, the book is narrated by AI (maybe why it was offered as the free perk, to see how people reacted to it?). Initially I was nervous about that and expected it to be terrible, but actually overall I thought it was pretty good narration, especially at first. The AI did a surprisingly (to me) good job of the intonation and pauses and sounded pretty natural in general. It was far from perfect though... The most egregious example is I'd say one time out of four it pronounces her name differently -- GAY-leah instead of GAL-ia. That was weird and I don't have a good explanation for it even given what I know about this technology. The other things made more sense to me. It had a lot of trouble with fillers: Ummmm, uhhhh, ohhhhh, hmmmmm, etc. I don't know how they were written on the page but it was clear there were multiple consonants and it wasn't trained for that because it tried to pronounce them! It also had a lot of trouble with the early 1900s Irish dialect, things like "I got to ask me mum" were extremely stilted and sounded terrible, not natural like the modern speech. There were also
So anyway... yeah, I shelled out the $13 so I could finish the story because I wanted to know how it ended. I was already annoyed at paying that much for a 4 hour book (of which I'd already listened to half) but I thought well, I'm saving almost $3 by doing this instead of keeping the membership alive. But then I don't even get to finish the story because the author didn't finish the story! UGHGUGH Like seriously, you at least have to wrap up ONE storyline when you end a book, so you can pretend there is an ending, even if you leave a cliffhanger somewhere for the next book.
So now I have to decide. Do I want to know how it ends, or not? If so, do I want to listen to it for another $13 (that's $26 on what should have been a single 8-hour audio book!) or just pay $5 for the kindle version and read it on my phone. HRMPF.
I wouldn't have been so annoyed if I hadn't paid $13 for it... which I wouldn't have had to except for timing. I had already decided to pause my Audible membership. I looked at my library to choose my next read. I didn't remember purchasing this one, but it looked good and it was short so I started it. And then when I was in the middle of it, my Audible membership expired and... the book disappeared. Turns out, I didn't remember purchasing it because I hadn't... it was a free perk with the membership.
But I was really enjoying the book! The world that Myers has created is really fascinating, with the government supporting a community of people who live completely underground, are told stories about "the above" that are untrue and scary to keep them there, and killing anyone who might be brave enough to get out and check what's up there so that their secret doesn't get out. The main character, Galia, is the child of two people who escaped from one such underground society in the mountains of Tennessee - she was brought up very sheltered and with no technology because of her parents past, but rebels and leaves home to go to college and learns to use tech and becomes an archivist at a library. Someone reaches out to her who claims to have info on another underground society and they begin investigating together. Simultaneously, we are getting the history of the community and its founders, starting in the early 1900s.
I also didn't realize when I started it that this is the third book in a series. This didn't matter - the author did a great job of giving just enough info at the beginning so we understand what is going on without having read the books and this story doesn't need the first two - but making me interested enough to potentially read them if I weren't so mad about this book not ending.
Interestingly, the book is narrated by AI (maybe why it was offered as the free perk, to see how people reacted to it?). Initially I was nervous about that and expected it to be terrible, but actually overall I thought it was pretty good narration, especially at first. The AI did a surprisingly (to me) good job of the intonation and pauses and sounded pretty natural in general. It was far from perfect though... The most egregious example is I'd say one time out of four it pronounces her name differently -- GAY-leah instead of GAL-ia. That was weird and I don't have a good explanation for it even given what I know about this technology. The other things made more sense to me. It had a lot of trouble with fillers: Ummmm, uhhhh, ohhhhh, hmmmmm, etc. I don't know how they were written on the page but it was clear there were multiple consonants and it wasn't trained for that because it tried to pronounce them! It also had a lot of trouble with the early 1900s Irish dialect, things like "I got to ask me mum" were extremely stilted and sounded terrible, not natural like the modern speech. There were also
So anyway... yeah, I shelled out the $13 so I could finish the story because I wanted to know how it ended. I was already annoyed at paying that much for a 4 hour book (of which I'd already listened to half) but I thought well, I'm saving almost $3 by doing this instead of keeping the membership alive. But then I don't even get to finish the story because the author didn't finish the story! UGHGUGH Like seriously, you at least have to wrap up ONE storyline when you end a book, so you can pretend there is an ending, even if you leave a cliffhanger somewhere for the next book.
So now I have to decide. Do I want to know how it ends, or not? If so, do I want to listen to it for another $13 (that's $26 on what should have been a single 8-hour audio book!) or just pay $5 for the kindle version and read it on my phone. HRMPF.
December 14, 2023
I truly enjoyed Beyond. I will honestly say it wasn't what I was expecting. I thought the author would go in a completely different direction! She definitely surprised me when she, well ... I don't do spoilers so you'll have to read it to find out. I will tell you that I really enjoyed it, that I think it was a brilliant continuation and a springboard into the Within!
Beyond is the third book in the Buried Reserve series. It is my opinion that these are not standalone books and should be read in order. I highly recommend both Above and Below, as well as this one ... And I can't wait for Within!!
Beyond is the third book in the Buried Reserve series. It is my opinion that these are not standalone books and should be read in order. I highly recommend both Above and Below, as well as this one ... And I can't wait for Within!!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews