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biobeetle's review
- 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
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Body horror, Blood, and Colonisation
Moderate: Medical content, War, Suicide attempt, Death, Violence, Pregnancy, and Racism
Minor: Child death
pacifickat's review against another edition
- 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
4.25
However, there was a section toward the middle where
Ultimately this is a story about finding balance, between a traumatic past and a hopeful future, between individual and communal identity, between colonizing forces and indigenous cultures, and between the land and sea itself. It is also about remembering.
"Remember. […] That was all remembering was, prodding them lest they try to move on from things that should not be moved on from. Forgetting is not the same as healing.” - Yetu
"One can only go so long without asking, ‘Who am I? Where do I come from? What does all this mean? What is being? What came before me, and what might come after?’ Without answers there is only a hole, a whole where a history should be that takes the shape of an endless longing. We are cavities.” - Amamba
Yetu bears all of her people’s generational trauma, that is her role as ‘memory keeper’ in a society where long-term memory has largely been erased to give her people the freedom to thrive in the present unhindered by a painful past. She is their matriarch, but she is ill-suited for the role.
"She couldn’t determine which was worse, the pain of the ancestors or the pain of the living. Both fed off her.”
"She learned how to make an inch for herself.”
"She touched each one of them, figuring out how each Wajinru was outside of the oneness the remembrance brought. That mattered. Who each of them was mattered as much as who all of them were together.”
"They could bear it all together.”
It is also a story about the function of memory in culture-making and identity.
In the afterward, The Deep is described as “a game of cumulative telephone.” The concept began as a song and was adapted over time by different musical groups until this novelization was produced.
“Each new telling of The Deep has been productive rather than destructive, and each new iteration has been carried out with admiration for the previous, […] happily taking on adaptations of each new interpreter into the future.”
This is a wonderful description of culture-making, the turning of ‘I’ into ‘we’, of carrying our stories, traumas, and longings together, erasing loneliness in the context of a communal tribe. It is forming collective memory, adapting a shared history into a cohesive perspective, a meaningful and unifying mythology.
"The living put their own mark on the dead.”
Graphic: Blood, Colonisation, Death, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, War, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Trafficking, Violence, Self harm, and Sexual content
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Ableism, and Animal death
drowning, shark attacks, birth, biting, neurodivergence, generational trauma, collective traumawillow_the_wisp's review
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Slavery, Islamophobia, Blood, and Suicide attempt
jinmichae's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I enjoyed the concept most of all, and the vignette of how they came together as a people. Unfortunately, I just didn't like the main character very much. She has reasons for being the way she is, but something about the way she was characterized made her not as sympathetic as she needed to be to explain her actions.
I also feel the overarching plot gets lost in vignettes which are more worldbuilding than progressing the narrative. I wish it was more focused on that main plot: I think it would be a better read as a short story instead of a novella. It also has a "woe is me" component that gets tiring.
I did appreciate that the main character is implied to have autism/gets overstimulated easily in a way that prevents her from doing her very important job. The depths of this discomfort isn't acknowledged by those around her though, which seems odd to me: she has family and friends who love her, and despite the plot important lack of long term memory, they *do* remember her sensitivities. I think that detail would have to be changed to make the way they treat her, and the way she reacts, make more sense.
Graphic: Pregnancy, Self harm, Racism, Abandonment, and Slavery
Moderate: Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Blood, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, and Suicidal thoughts
smuttymcbookface's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The first Historian, in an attempt to save her people from knowing the truth of their births, kept the knowledge to themselves until nearing death, when they passed it on to the next Historian. Capable of taking the traumatic events from other Wajinru's, even when dead, the Historian's job within the community evolved into holding all harsh memories, and storing the collective pains of their people. The exception to this being the Rememberance, where the Historian shares the history with everyone for a few days, before reabsorbing them, allowing their people to understand the importance of their knowledge, but not requiring them to know the specifics once the ceremony is completed.
This story mostly follows Yetu, the latest Historian, as she struggles to live whilst carrying her people's traumas. Knowing that she'll likely die if she reabsorbs them at the end of the Rememberance, she flees to land, where she meets Oori. A relationship slowly forms where Yetu learns that Oori has lost all of her own people's history when everyone but her was wiped out from an illness. This leaves Yetu wondering if her people were then correct to sacrifice one Wajinru's life and identity, the Historian, so that the remaining Wajinru can live unburdened.
This is a beautiful story with very little plot; mostly exploring feelings of belonging and self-identity. It was both beautiful and difficult to read, and despite being a novella, perfectly built this world where the ocean returned life where humans destroyed it. It was also refreshing to read of love and identity being unquestioned and just a way of existing.
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Slavery
Minor: Sexual content
obscurepages's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Intersex merfolk who are descendants of pregnant African slaves women? A clever and compelling story about individuality and community, and history's significance towards the people in the present? A story that highlights intergenerational trauma and its impact? A story that highlights the need to discover personal identity while still wanting to connect with your people's history? This book is ALL of these, and it's also so much more.
Brilliantly written, this book is steeped with folklore and world-building and introspective themes. The perspectives, which can switch from the MC to an ancestor, highlight amazing storytelling from the author.
Overall, this was poignant and it was powerful. Definitely one of my top reads for the year. 🥹
Graphic: Blood, Suicide attempt, and Violence
Moderate: Grief, Mental illness, and Slavery
alicelalicon's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Child death, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Animal death, Self harm, Pregnancy, Racism, Blood, and Death
kanthereader's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Self harm, Blood, Animal death, Death, Abandonment, Slavery, and Pregnancy
Minor: War and Suicide attempt
building_a_bookdom's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Eating disorder, Genocide, Grief, Mental illness, Slavery, Blood, Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, War, and Abandonment
Moderate: Pregnancy, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Child death, Murder, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Body horror, Colonisation, and Death of parent
marsh_mall0w's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Pregnancy, Genocide, Death of parent, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, and Grief
Moderate: Abandonment, Blood, Gore, Self harm, Murder, Animal death, and Suicide
Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Eating disorder