Reviews

The Deluge by Stephen Markley

aliciagw's review against another edition

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slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

I see I'm in the minority here, but I found this pretty miserable.  I really forced myself through this one, and found very little enjoyment in it.

On paper, this should have been a perfect read for me.  I love long books with lots of characters.  The problem with this one is for the majority of the book I found the characterizations to be relatively shallow and uninteresting.  I would fairly frequently get characters confused because most of their narration voices seemed exactly the same to me.  I was even confused if characters were male or female, because they all sounded male to me.  I would say there were three characters I could easily identify- Kate, the selfish feminist who constantly called everyone "babe" or "kid" or "tar heel" or "wall street" (I found her character excessively grating- everyone thought she was just too cool for school), Ashir the neurodivergent mathematician who the author constantly reminded us was neurodivergent (annoying as well), and Keeper, because his character was written in the second person (very scummy person at the beginning but grew on me).

The book was absolutely filled to the brim with long tedious chapters that were solely about political policy.  I found these chapters incredibly boring and difficult to read.  Every now and again there would be an interesting chapter that involved some character depth, but it quickly would go back to political or policy talk.  Oh, and apparently the author believes that when women are involved in an office shooting, they think about the skin on their breasts instead of where to hide or of the person who was just shot in front of them.  The quote:  "two bullets tore her arm almost entirely off her body so that sharp bone came shredding out of the meat of her bicep, and I just stood there, feeling the skin of my breasts go taut, the way it does when you swim in frigid water."  I don't think I would think about my breasts.  Just saying.  It was only one sentence, but it jarred me out of the text and made me laugh out loud at how ridiculous it was at a point that I shouldn't have been laughing.

I was going to give it a 1.5 or 2, but it did redeem itself a little bit in the final 50-100 pages or so (hard to tell, it just felt so long).  There were a couple of chapters near the end that covered some of the characters that were a bit deeper and more well done.  One in particular about the character Tony Pietrus I found particularly moving and interesting.

I will say, since reading this I have pondered environmental issues a bit more, so there's that.

bentrevett's review

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5.0

this book is basically The Overstory by Richard Powers, but better because there weren't any characters who I didn't like as much as the others. it follows a bunch of storylines from 2010 to 2040 whilst the world goes through rapid geopolitical changes due to global warming. i'd like to sound smart and say "it's not really about climate change actually it's about the characters :)", but i do not think that's correct at all. sure, climate change is definitely the driving plot device, it's the thing that's putting these characters into these situations that make it an interesting novel, but i don't see how it's possible that a book which has five of the six characters actively involved in climate politics and worrying about political legislation can not be a "climate change book" (or cli-fi if you're an insufferable person).

yeah, it's fucking long -- my kindle says it is 1165 pages -- so if you don't like long books then you won't like this book. yeah, it's about climate change, so i guess if you have zero interest in it or don't believe it's real then don't read it. yeah all the good guys are leftist socialists, etc etc etc. but i like all of those things and i loved this book.

rechecha's review

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dark inspiring tense medium-paced

3.5

rageousmageous's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

sssam_c's review

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challenging dark slow-paced

5.0

djr100's review

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5.0

4 1/2 stars rounded up. What a big story, literally and figuratively. At almost 1000 pages this isn’t going to be to everyone’s liking but I enjoy a challenge when the reward is great writing with a timely story line and a big cast of characters. I will be thinking about this book for days.

spiffxp's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

hlc22's review

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challenging dark emotional informative tense
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

urito98's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

leman's review

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0