Reviews

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

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forsidious's review against another edition

This book starts out with "there's mermaids, and video evidence!" then tries to convince us there's any suspense for the rest of it. What am I supposed to be surprised by? How many times do they need to say "they're not mammals and they don't look like humans"? How many physical descriptions do I need of the exact same thing because a new character is seeing the mermaids (in person) for the first time? How many reminders do I need that they have 3 ways of communicating? How many times are they going to try to convince me the mermaids are evil when the humans clearly came into their territory knowing what would happen? How many elementary biology lessons am I going to get from the perspective of biologist who for some reason don't know elementary biology? How many times are people going to be surprised by mermaids existing when, again, there's video evidence!?

paige_bunnie's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I loved this book but I think I may be biased as h20 was my childhood TV series favourite, so I have a soft spot for mermaids in stories. I went into this without much expectations and was happily surprised by not only the attention to detail in the rendering of the mermaids but also the character depth and dynamics, whilst there were a few characters who were obviously dislikable in a rather cliche 'they're going to get killed in the slaughter and we will not be bummed about it' horror movie type way, the majority of characters were actually complex well thought out, with their own motivations ideals and complex history that lead to them being in the plot. I was also happily surprised by the diversity this book offered with sapphic rep, autistic rep and deaf rep all which seamlessly added itself to the story. I also found the mermaids rather terrifying and felt the tension in each scene until the last part where the plot had accelerated to a climax, I just felt that we had lost some of that eeriness that made the mermaids so anxiety inducing, I also think that because we were learning about the creatures through the characters as we went, the mermaids became less mysterious by the end and therefore less anxiety inducing. There are also some questions left unanswered to do with the possibilities of how the sirens and humans could interact which I wanted to see more of, especially since it provided more discussion of linguistics and sign language, I just think it would've been very interesting and mightve lead to a more satisfying conclusion to the book. All in all I loved this book and sort of wish there will be a follow up, not that I know what storyline that would follow, maybe just some short stories of things that occurred after the discovery.