Reviews

The Deep by Nick Cutter

jarofbees's review

Go to review page

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

3.0

maitland's review

Go to review page

1.0

I could not stand this book. I like Nick Cutter's other book "The Troop", but this book I hated. There are already several good reviews on goodreads that voice the exact same problems I had with this book so I'll try make this short.

1. Most of the book seemed to be boring flashbacks that I didn't care about and actually got so tedious to read through I stopped reading at several points.

2. I don't know if I should put bad character development or no character development. I guess there was an attempt to do some with the main character but other than that... yeah not much. No reason to care about anyone in this story.

3. Nothing is explained. If you like that sort of thing cool. Good for you, and I hope you enjoyed the book. Just because I didn't doesn't mean that I hope other people don't. I do not like having pretty much no explanation to things. Especially after several hundred pages that turned into a chore rather than a fun experience.

I wrote quite a bit more but I wanted this review to be quick and everything else kept circling back to the book constantly getting interrupted by those damn flashbacks anyways I deleted the rest. Those damn, never ending, tedious flashbacks.

Why did I bother finishing the book if I disliked it this much? Well like I said earlier I enjoyed Nick Cutter's "The Troop" and I kept hoping that there was about to be some kinda turn around in this book that made it more enjoyable. But in the end the scariest thing about this book for me was every night when I realized there was still more to read.

zmull's review

Go to review page

3.0

One of Stephen King's criticisms of Kubrick's film of the Shining is that Jack Nicholson is clearly crazy in his first scene and the audience is just waiting for him to starting killing people. This is a fair criticism. Really effective horror is about the unknowable perverting the knowable. Things safe become things horrific. Part of the problem with Nick Cutter's second horror novel is that his characters start out twisted. Their further descent into madness is probably inevitable given the genre, but telegraphing it on the first page robs the story of much of its power. The setting, a research station at the lowest point of the ocean, Challenge Deep, could be a great location for scares, but Cutter mostly leaves those as potential, as background tension and relies on fairly mundane, hallucinatory monsters to stalk our characters. All in all, The Deep isn't a bad novel exactly, but it does manage to waste a nice premise on gross body horror stuff and dream-like creepers.

bababookmatt's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • 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? It's complicated

4.75

foggyfitzgerald's review

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

eaborum's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

mmsanford's review

Go to review page

5.0

Short plot: The world is experiencing a new pandemic called “the gets.” It resembles rapid paced dementia that starts off as dark spots on the body, then forgetting tiny things like where you left your keys, until the person forgets who they are, when to eat, how to breath… the virus attacks people of all ages all across the world with no cause or cure known. Until our MC, Lucas, receives an urgent call. His estranged, genius brother, Clayton, is in an underwater laboratory in the deepest parts of the ocean known as the Challenger Deep researching a cure. However, the last recording received was an unsettling message- “Lucas… come home”- before all communication goes dead. Lucas is asked to go down to the laboratory to potentially save his brother and continue the search for a cure. However, when he arrives he will face something much darker, older and deadlier than “the gets.”

Amazing book. I was hooked from start to finish. It created a haunting atmosphere, memories of past trauma, gore, heartbreak, and claustrophobia. It gave me flashbacks to watching Event Horizon for the first time. Absolutely epic read, but many many triggers so tread carefully.

mmc_librarian's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark sad tense medium-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

3.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

lazy_waffle's review

Go to review page

dark emotional sad 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? Yes

4.75

bookscramble's review

Go to review page

3.0

Deep sea exploration has always fascinated and scared the crap out of me, so naturally, I was excited about diving into The Deep by Nick Cutter. Things started off strong but ended up falling flat for me in the end.