LOY and Beyond Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given an ARC of this book from Stress Free Book Marketing in exchange for an honest review.

I have read a handful of books that were the second or latter titles in their series without reading the first one. Some of these like Richville, Another Tale of Travail and Treachery by Robert C. Jones and Death in a Gilded Frame by Cecelia Tichi come to mind. I can add another one to this list, which is LOY and Beyond by Todd David Gross. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into it except for two things.

LOY and Beyond is about a group of native people who have extraordinary abilities and have a special relationship with nature. In this entry, the Rehloy face the invasion of a barbarous and technologically superior group of people – the Ontarans. The Ontarans are the first great civilization to rise from the ashes. While they try to conquer the new land and weaponize the beasts native to it, they discover something far more valuable and potentially dangerous. Meanwhile, the Rehloy have a child named Tremlo, whose extreme sensitivities force him to live in seclusion. In order to find himself, he leaves the tribe to travel with Jormah – the Shaman in the making. This story is about first contact.

Even though I am in the minority when it comes to this, I couldn’t get into LOY and Beyond for two reasons. The first is that I didn’t read the first novel in the series Loy: In the Forest of the Mind. While I enjoyed certain aspects like how the Rehloy function (specifically how they are born blind, but shed the skin over their face at puberty,) I wasn’t able to care about other ones. With the exception of some people, the Ontarans felt like another typical colonizer as they tried to confiscate knowledge and resources from the natives and the land. If I had read the first book, I would’ve cared more since that one had great reviews.

The second reason is that I felt like I was dropped into the world Gross created right in the middle as opposed to the beginning. Yes, I know that this is the second book in the series, but it was so sudden and jarring. It starts off with a man named Daniel trying to remember a woman/girl named Jennifer, and then it shows the map of the world, in which the book takes place in, and a cast list. Daniel doesn’t really appear in the rest of the novel. This soured my experience reading it. If that prologue took place after the map and character list and if Daniel played a bigger role, it could’ve been a smoother transition, and I would’ve gotten into it more.

And despite my grievances with the novel, I still finished it, and that was because of Tremlo. Tremlo is a super sensitive child who had a special ability to blend in with the nature around him. In other words, he is autistic-coded. Sure, the adults in the Rehloy group know that he is odd, but they are fully aware of the potential that he has. They believe that Tremlo is the way that he is because he became “conscious in the womb.”

I’ve never seen that explanation for autism since the causes are often debated. Nonetheless, it reflects how many autistic people in real life are overly sensitive people who notice too much. This paints a more realistic picture of what it means to be autistic than what regular media is willing to portray.

I enjoyed Tremlo. He has his quirks like referring to himself in the third person and has worries about belonging. There are even times, in which he believes that he has to sacrifice himself in order to truly find himself. The ending pays that off well. When he senses that Jormah – the Shaman in training – is coming back to the tribe, he immediately attaches himself to him. Tremlo even leaves with Jormah despite the latter’s protests. Together, they work on strengthening Tremlo’s skills and self-esteem. There’s even a scene, in which Tremlo has to save Jormah after the latter is captured by the Ontarans. This proves to Jormah that he had been underestimating Tremlo the entire time. I was totally invested in their journeys.

LOY and Beyond by Todd David Gross is one I couldn’t get invested in no matter how hard I tried. Tremlo and his relationship with Jormah were the only things that kept me going because of how authentic they felt. I feel like I would’ve liked it more if I read the first book in the Rehloy series. It would’ve made me comprehend the world more. This novel is good for readers who like science fiction, dystopian titles about new and unique civilizations, and have read Loy: In the Forest of the Mind. 

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