Reviews with content warning for Blood - Into the Drowning Deep

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

160 reviews

dfrancis's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Content Warnings

studiouspencil's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I was all set to give this 5 stars based on the premise- evil flesh eating mermaids, WLW, autistic and disabled rep, hard sci-fi, but I found the writing a bit off putting. The third person omniscient made me feel detached, and the sort of dry statements that are common in this style drained a lot of the tension for me.
I loved a lot of the characters, particularly Doctor Toth and Olivia Sanderson, but I felt we never delved as deep as I wanted to go into their emotional states.
I thought Olivia was really interesting as autism representation. She reminds me of myself in that she’s clearly high masking and using scripts, repeated phrases, and and studying the people around her to get through social interactions. She’s constantly mentioned as having a flat affect and little to no emotion on her face unless she’s “performing” it deliberately, something I also struggle with. However I kept expecting her to crash. One cannot go through a deeply stressful situation like this as an autistic person without stimming, going nonverbal, melting down or shutting down, and just plain losing it. She seemed unrealistically composed to me.
As for the science. I’ve seen some complaints about the scientific infodumping but I LOVE the way marine biology was incorporated. Everything felt soooo realistic and it made things much eerier in my opinion. I could picture how these creatures looked and moved and thought and it was a constant reminder of how unexplored the ocean really is.
I enjoyed the ‘angler fish’ twist at the end but I thought the ending itself was a bit rushed- I would have liked to see the siege of the ship start earlier so we could develop who these characters are in a crisis before everything ended. I wanted to see more of the siren’s language and the captive siren. I wanted more tension around the toxin element, I wanted more moments where the mimicry came into play.
All and all a solid book with a rushed final section

Content Warnings

librarymouse's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark funny medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

Seanan McGuire as herself and as Mira Grant always has such a strong writing style, making her characters funny even in the darkest of settings and situations. I read this before I read Rolling in the Deep, and I'm glad I did for the sense of mystery that choice allowed. McGuire is very good at feeding readers bits of information that become pertinent to the plot in such a way that plot twists feel more like pieces of a puzzle finally fitting together, as opposed to the rug being pulled out from underneath the reader. I do really enjoy how competent the characters are and I loved the disability representation. Having multiple physically and socially disabled characters in a story added so much nuance to the storytelling and the interactions between characters.

Heads up: It's very gory. Remember going into the novel that mermaids originated from myths in which they lured sailors to their deaths to eat them.

I was listening to this on audiobook while driving, and when I got to my destination, I paused it and told the friend I was meeting "There's not much book left, and it's not getting better 😐," in reference to the characters' situation. The storytelling was uniformly enjoyable!
The book does finish quickly after extended suspense, but I think I may enjoy that a good part of it was left unresolved. Tori coming to tolerate and then to love(?) Olivia was good closure for the plot point of Anne's death that started the novel, offering the possibility of Tori being able to move forward from her sister's death, if not move on from it. I hope there's a sequel. There's enough still left unfinished for one, though I've seen that the publishing company may have rejected McGuire's proposal.

Content Warnings

inthebrineydeep's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.0

Content Warnings

asafekindofhigh's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark informative mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

gawdz0rz's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark tense medium-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? No

4.25

absolutely loved the mermaids and the concept behind them, super unique. i really enjoyed the alternating pov, as well. and the dolphin chapter. the book was really slow at the beginning, but if you can make it to when they’re actually on the boat, it picks up.

a bit disappointing the mermaids didn’t use their mimicry to trick humans to open doors or come around corners or something similar.

also, the implosion of heather’s submersible would not have left any remains behind, and she would not have lived long enough to see water make it into the submersible at that depth.

overall a really good book and clearly written with another one in mind!

Content Warnings