THEY WATCH FROM BELOW

An incoming college freshman discovers horrors lurking on campus.

Adria “Addie” Velde is excited to join an orientation program at the University of the Arches, her mother’s alma mater on the California coast. Haunted by childhood memories of lurking shadows and her mother’s strange aloofness, Addie quickly discovers that going off to college might not provide the escape she was hoping for. The campus is littered with strange symbols, she meets creepy instructors, and a purportedly “fun activity” leads her to descriptions of strange rituals. From her dorm window, Addie can see the Devouring Well, which has a padlocked lid and is a source of ominous campus folklore. Addie becomes close to a group of other legacy students whose parents were linked through a strange class and an even stranger (and now mysteriously vanished) professor. The first half of the novel consists of slowly paced buildup, with clumsy interstitial chapters describing scenes from the Velde family’s home videos. The most interesting information is revealed through dream sequences and infodumps. Repetitive references to vibes and vibrations stand in for more evocative descriptions of horror, while the stilted prose hampers the story’s forward momentum. The romantic subplot (involving twin brothers) never quite takes off. Addie’s grandparents came from Belarus and Italy; there’s some diversity in race, nationality, and gender identity among supporting characters.

Melodramatic dark academia.