Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Deep by Zetta Elliott

1 review

f18's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

The character development and worldbuilding were much better in The Deep than the first book, Ship of Souls,  but right as the book was hitting its climax at the 88% mark, the author chose to switch from present to past tense (the first book was present tense as well) and have the characters talk as if they were summarizing (exciting!!) events through memory. The summary style stopped after a few scenes, but the past tense stayed to the end and unfortunately the tension was already broken. I'm not sure what Zetta Elliott was trying to achieve with this strange writing choice.

I'd also like to mention that in order to leave home before dinner (she already had permission to leave right after eating) Nyla uses a friend's suicide attempt as an excuse to sway her parents. This is never addressed and didn't seem necessary or in-character, and in fact, this is the only plot relevance her friend has in this book. I could see it having happened
after her addiction sets in to show how her judgement was deteriorating
but this is before
she comes into contact with the energy in The Deep.


These issues (and some other more minor things) weren't balanced out by what I thought this book improved upon, so I can't rate it higher than the first. I will still try The Return as I'm hoping it will reveal how Nuru is connected to The Deep and tie the first two books together. 

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EDIT: Book 3 didn't even involve D, so definitely nothing about Nuru, but I did end up liking it more than the prev two.
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