- My Rating: 4.75/5
- Goodreads Rating: 3.85/5
- Year Published: 2026
- Page Count: 512
“Death is merely an intermission between acts.”
Synopsis
At the end of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she’s ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career, a husband, and a family.
But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t outrun her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won’t be far behind.
Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole, and into a world, they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time? (Goodreads, 2026)
“What she saw above ground was one part of the story. The second was below.”
My Review (Spoiler-free!)
Literary sci-fi was a genre I was foreign to until reading Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel a couple weeks ago, and I am hooked. I worried that I wouldn’t find another book that had that perfect mix of other-worldliness, far-fetched yet believable scientific explanations, and characters who explode off the page and into my heart. But here it is! Under Story is, in short, an absolute masterpiece.
The world building of Under Story is its standout feature. Benjamin created this tangible universe that flips our own on its head, yet maintains the questions at the center of ours—life’s purpose, death, selfhood, community. The device driving the story forward is in itself a thought experiment on humanity, on how we live every single day.
The plot is fascinating. A mind-bending, reality-warping tale, Under Story gave me the privilege of getting to follow Eli and Laurel as they handle grief, muddle through messy (but human) relationships, and explore a world impossible to fathom. Once I got past the exposition, I genuinely could not put this book down. There are so many small details important to the story, and they all came together in a beautiful way.
Chloe Benjamin’s prose is out-of-this-world (no pun intended). I wanted to soak every word into my bloodstream. It was simple but, given the complicated setting and plot, simple prose was exactly what was needed. By simplifying her writing, the breathtaking complexity was able to shine through and reach the reader on a far deeper level than if Benjamin had reached for a more flowery style.
Pulling off a story of this magnitude is no easy feat; the imagination required, the research, the in-depth thought that Benjamin clearly put into every seemingly “throwaway” sentence… it all comes together to form a dazzling tapestry that I never wanted to end.
As you can probably tell, I want so badly to give this a five star review, but unfortunately, I almost DNFed it (which would have been the worst mistake of my life) because the beginning dragged on in a way I found boring and confusing. Upon continuing, it becomes clear why Benjamin chose to spend so much of the first 100 pages with characters who seemed somewhat irrelevant; but at the time of reading, I didn’t have the benefit of hindsight. Recommending this book to people, I’m going to have to say, “It’s spectacular, but you have to get through the beginning.”
Last thing: a moment of appreciation for this cover. I’m ordering it as a hardcover right now, because Under Story is one of the few books where the beauty of its contents match the splendor of its cover art.
“If life was a circle, soil was the circle’s join, the place it all began and ended: cause and effect, birth and death.”
Recommendation
Highly recommend for any fans of literary fiction or sci-fi. Even if you’re not a huge fan of either, this was such a fun, mind-bending, thought-provoking read that I would encourage you to try it out. But make sure to get past page 100 before forming any opinions!
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