Reviews with content warning for Blood - Into the Drowning Deep

A long read, very sharknado vibes, quite fascinating and deeply weird. I did like the neurodivergency and differently abled expressions and abilities quite a bit.

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nightjar656's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Very creepy! Kept me in suspense. I love what the author did with the Abneys and the characters were really unique and well written.

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smellymiche's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

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lilacs_book_bower's review against another edition

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mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

The more I reflect on this, the less I like it. The characters were for the most part barely sketched out and flat. There was one character that felt real and interesting, but no one else. I also genuinely didn't care about any of the characters. Grant tries to give people depth and different issues, like deafness or having autism, so I appreciate that, but again, I didn't care about these people that were selfish and made idiotic choice after idiotic choice. There is also SO MUCH info dumping. Characters will be having a conversation and then we pause in the middle of it to have two or three pages of back story and exposition. It completely brings the narrative and pacing to a halt. A few things, like the actual layout of the boat and how the shutters were supposed to work was also confusing. At one point, a character had to go only twenty feet, and they were acting like it was 200 yards. Lots of things just felt off, or not thought through, and yet the book dragged on and on and on because of the constant exposition. The ending is also abrupt and disappointing, and leaves things open for a sequel that never came (tbs, likely out of Grant's hands). This is the second Grant/McGuire book I have read, and despite wanting to love them both so much, I have just been disappointed unfortunately.

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teeclecticreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This was LONG and nothing really started happening until about 60% in. Science fiction with extra context is harder to read. The plot was interesting but I wasn’t blown away and could barely keep up with all the characters. Eh

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j_squaredd's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

So much of the science in this book is so wacky and wrong, and the author clearly doesn’t know how academia works at all. The mermaids are absolutely unbelievable and so are the skills and circumstances of many of the main characters. If you’re going the sci fi route where the science is supposed to sound plausible, you need to do a lot more research. Maybe it’s because I have a STEM PhD, but I don’t see how this book is so highly rated.

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sav_22's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I think that the writing in this is one of my favorite writing styles. The plot, however, could have been a little stronger. I would have liked to also see the characters develop just a little more; for such a long book, I feel like

you only get attached to Olivia because you get the most out of her character dev. I think the other characters were flat in growth and could have been pushed more within the narrative but weren’t. These characters are trapped together on a floating impending cemetery—use that to build tension!!! Explore rivalries, clashes in the romance, depth in the choices they make. I like the characters but I could have lost just about any of them and not been emotionally impacted except for the twins and Hallie.

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zghutcheson01's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I really enjoyed the descriptions of injury which were enough to impress the danger and make me uneasy but didn't seem gratuitous. If you're a biologist, this book also has a semi-accurate (though it feels real) portrayal of how competitive the academic biology environment is.

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