Reviews - The Deep | The StoryGraph

3.25k reviews for:

The Deep

Nick Cutter

3.36 AVERAGE

mpicazo's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

_shann_'s review against another edition

2.5

dark mysterious fast-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

A fine concept for a book, but The Troop definitely pulls through as the strongest of Nick’s work.

This novel started off great, a plot line made intriguing with an incurable disease, the deep dark ocean, a cognisant Ambrosia and a man with some trauma. Clearly though, all this potential got left at the surface once it started because after the first 1/3rd of the book it spiralled into something trivial.

The concept of the Ambrosia was INTERESTING, so whyyy did we abandon all this just to rant about his mummy issues and a dead son that frankly I have no emotional connection with? None of these characters are dealt with in present day and half the book relies on flashbacks to paint the picture.

I think this book also got lost in what it was trying to do: on either being a lovecraftian/high entity thought piece on survival and grief, or a scientific thriller on the Ambrosia and incurable disease. Either direction could have been really strong if it just focused on one.

Also, minus a few stars for animal cruelty, because fuck that, horror can be good without being unnecessarily mean to animals. LEAVE THE DOGS ALONE NICK

autumnwonders's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Loveable characters: Yes

This is probably the scariest book I’ve ever read. It’s quite disturbing.
I would say there are 1 or 2 more horrific scenes than there needs to be. It was just too much for me!

Content Warnings

saintyrer's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Haunting portrayed through a lost son, a dead mother, a sociopathic genius brother, and a vaguely Lovecraftian horror. Grief is not a linear thing; it is a cycle, and one that protagonist Luke Nelson is uncomfortably familiar with. Though there is the issue of the 'Gets not being properly explained or touched on besides its appearance in the earlier chapters prior to Luke's descent into the Mariana Trench, I choose to interpret the story's many plot holes as an effect of the claustrophobic dread that Nick Cutter paints for us. Deep down the surface of the Pacific Ocean and in the prison of the Trieste, "The Deep" becomes less of a Lovecraftian horror and more of a psychological descent into everything-went-wrong-gets-even-worse. It's miserable, and I've never been haunted by a story of two brothers more.

drjrabel's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

nick_portillo89's review against another edition

4.0

Not as good as The Troop. But a pretty interesting read.

beetlepaws's review against another edition

2.75

medium-paced

Saying "millipede" while clearly describing a centipede was enough to break my immersion. Otherwise good for the most part, though I did not like the ending at all. Sudden exposition dumps in the last few pages are the worst.

Content Warnings