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emmonsannae's review against another edition
mysterious
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
1.5
Ahhh, I really wanted to like this book! The positive is that it’s well written and I enjoyed its prose. I would definitely read something else by the same author. The negatives: I didn’t end up enjoying the story at all. I didn’t find the way it shaped out to be compelling. The supernatural elements were too spread out, so their conclusion (to me) felt contrived. I really disliked the weird throuple energy the main characters ended up having—that relationship and how it was treated in the story made the historical aspect much less believable. By the end of the novel, the whole thing felt like the 21st century transposed into the early 20th, rather than an immersion in the latter, which is what I think was most disappointing to me. Ultimately I think the book was just trying to be too many things, and that it could have been far better by doing less.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Suicide, Homophobia, Classism, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy
meecespieces's review
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Child death, and Death
alicelalicon's review against another edition
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Pregnancy, Sexism, Drug abuse, Blood, Death, Child death, Grief, Alcohol, Classism, Self harm, and Suicide attempt
ghostlyprince's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Pregnancy, Classism, Addiction, Child death, Drug abuse, Confinement, Gaslighting, Grief, Sexual content, Infidelity, Misogyny, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Sexism, Stalking, and Suicide
Moderate: Toxic friendship, Abortion, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Miscarriage, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Abandonment, Animal death, Child abuse, and Infertility
heathengray's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Statler: The Deep?
Waldorf: More like 'The Dearth!'
Both: Doh! Ho! Ho! Hooo!
The best thing I can say about The Deep, is that it is written in such a easy, breezy, style, that it lends itself well to skimming. It could be that's because it takes ages for Katsu to get to any point, or description, that skipping a few lines doesn't harm your experience. Any other author would have excised about 150 pages to create a taught drama, but Katsu wants you to stay for as long as possible.
And I admit, I was intrigued. A Ghost Story on the Titanic? I'm in! But there were many problems...
First, while her style of writing is quite lovely (perhaps too nice for a horror). She tells this story over 2 interwoven timelines. Cleverly so she can get in some good cliff hangers and revelations. Fine. But the 1912 timeline (set on The Titanic) is told in the past tense, the 1916 (set on The Britannic, her sister ship) is written in the present tense. Obviously done to create some kind of immediacy. But at the start of the book, this took my brain some moments to shift into the correct gear, and by the end, the two timelines had completed so most actions in 1916 were describing the past, so set in the past tense. It was a bit of a failure in prose device, if I'm honest. Also I counted at least 5 variations of the same metaphor along the lines of "She/he may as well have slapped/punched her/him for the hurt the words they spoke caused". Not quite drinking game worthy, but noticeable.
Second, I'm sorry to say this isn't much of a ghost story. Katsu confuses nothing happening with building tension. And what tension is there is build by people's deteriorating mental states. There's no pressing unnameable horror here to cause that. People on the Titanic according to Katsu were just broken mentally to begin with, and only got worse. There is a ghost, it features in less than 1% of the book. There is plenty of talk about the ghost, repeating what we already know. A wasted oppertunity.
Thirdly, despite being set on the Titanic and later the Britannic, there is nothing here to root it to those ships. A survivor of both sinkings was the inspiration for the book, but beyond the detailed historic decorations and name-throwing, this could have taken place on a space ship for all the narrative is worth. We mainly just learn that rich people don't understand poor people, and how life was cheap, and there are certainly other books that do this better. I didn't much like the use of real historical figures front and center in the narrative either. No matter how awful they may have been, it strikes me as tawdry. Despite Katsu's flowery descriptions of the boats, there was nothing much to separate characters, except very shallow traits: pregnant, newly-not-pregnant, cruel-rich-fasion-designer, gambling-addict-now-rich, big-burly-honest-boxer, toned-conman-boxer, etc. The use of historical figures seems to have been more of a noose than anything.
At the end of the day, this is an almost girlish fantasy about chasing your man and fixing him, because it must be destiny. However I did enjoy the sub-plot of the two boxers aboard, who happen to come from my hometown of Pontypridd in Wales. I'm not an expert of turn of the last century valley vernacular, but I don't think anybody called their fathers 'da', when the Welsh is 'tad', so perhaps Katsu confused her Celtic languages. Surely something a former CIA senior intelligence analyst would take pride in. There are also a couple of lines of a Welsh song (of sorts) I'm sure were just google translated, gibberish adjacent.
And so I finished The Deep, disappointed. I think I know when I'm going to be disappointed when I get 1/3 into a book and think "Still a solid 3 out of 5", because if I do that, the score can only drop.
Waldorf: More like 'The Dearth!'
Both: Doh! Ho! Ho! Hooo!
The best thing I can say about The Deep, is that it is written in such a easy, breezy, style, that it lends itself well to skimming. It could be that's because it takes ages for Katsu to get to any point, or description, that skipping a few lines doesn't harm your experience. Any other author would have excised about 150 pages to create a taught drama, but Katsu wants you to stay for as long as possible.
And I admit, I was intrigued. A Ghost Story on the Titanic? I'm in! But there were many problems...
First, while her style of writing is quite lovely (perhaps too nice for a horror). She tells this story over 2 interwoven timelines. Cleverly so she can get in some good cliff hangers and revelations. Fine. But the 1912 timeline (set on The Titanic) is told in the past tense, the 1916 (set on The Britannic, her sister ship) is written in the present tense. Obviously done to create some kind of immediacy. But at the start of the book, this took my brain some moments to shift into the correct gear, and by the end, the two timelines had completed so most actions in 1916 were describing the past, so set in the past tense. It was a bit of a failure in prose device, if I'm honest. Also I counted at least 5 variations of the same metaphor along the lines of "She/he may as well have slapped/punched her/him for the hurt the words they spoke caused". Not quite drinking game worthy, but noticeable.
Second, I'm sorry to say this isn't much of a ghost story. Katsu confuses nothing happening with building tension. And what tension is there is build by people's deteriorating mental states. There's no pressing unnameable horror here to cause that. People on the Titanic according to Katsu were just broken mentally to begin with, and only got worse. There is a ghost, it features in less than 1% of the book. There is plenty of talk about the ghost, repeating what we already know. A wasted oppertunity.
Thirdly, despite being set on the Titanic and later the Britannic, there is nothing here to root it to those ships. A survivor of both sinkings was the inspiration for the book, but beyond the detailed historic decorations and name-throwing, this could have taken place on a space ship for all the narrative is worth. We mainly just learn that rich people don't understand poor people, and how life was cheap, and there are certainly other books that do this better. I didn't much like the use of real historical figures front and center in the narrative either. No matter how awful they may have been, it strikes me as tawdry. Despite Katsu's flowery descriptions of the boats, there was nothing much to separate characters, except very shallow traits: pregnant, newly-not-pregnant, cruel-rich-fasion-designer, gambling-addict-now-rich, big-burly-honest-boxer, toned-conman-boxer, etc. The use of historical figures seems to have been more of a noose than anything.
At the end of the day, this is an almost girlish fantasy about chasing your man and fixing him, because it must be destiny. However I did enjoy the sub-plot of the two boxers aboard, who happen to come from my hometown of Pontypridd in Wales. I'm not an expert of turn of the last century valley vernacular, but I don't think anybody called their fathers 'da', when the Welsh is 'tad', so perhaps Katsu confused her Celtic languages. Surely something a former CIA senior intelligence analyst would take pride in. There are also a couple of lines of a Welsh song (of sorts) I'm sure were just google translated, gibberish adjacent.
And so I finished The Deep, disappointed. I think I know when I'm going to be disappointed when I get 1/3 into a book and think "Still a solid 3 out of 5", because if I do that, the score can only drop.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death
A recurring theme is women's autonomy, but there is some mention often_telegrams's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-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
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Grief, Suicide, Abortion, Death, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Addiction, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Blood, and Drug abuse
terry9375's review against another edition
I did a DNF on this one. Honesty… I think it was just marked wrong. I know that everyone has a different option on what horror is. But this book just doesn’t have any. Had it been listed as a historical fiction.. drama… style, maybe I would not of been so disappointed.
The idea of being stuck on a ship while something “scary” is happening is a great idea. But this book just never gives that to you. There isn’t even any really suspense building. More and more characters get added, and more and more background for them. But I never goes anywhere.
Having read how the book ends. I guess the horror comes in right at the end. And it’s not even a really good ending. Because the rest of the book does little to no build up to it.
The idea of being stuck on a ship while something “scary” is happening is a great idea. But this book just never gives that to you. There isn’t even any really suspense building. More and more characters get added, and more and more background for them. But I never goes anywhere.
Having read how the book ends. I guess the horror comes in right at the end. And it’s not even a really good ending. Because the rest of the book does little to no build up to it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death
phaas's review against another edition
dark
tense
slow-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Suicide, Death, Child death, and Pregnancy
pejms's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Mental illness, Child death, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Classism, Infidelity, Misogyny, Child abuse, Self harm, Suicide, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Stalking, and Toxic friendship
It’s a horror novel, bad things happen to a variety of characters, read at your own discretionnike13's review against another edition
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness
Minor: Child death