Reviews with content warning for Panic attacks/disorders - Into the Drowning Deep

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Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

11 reviews

trashkingmax's review

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Into the Drowning Deep is a fantastic read. It has a slow start to introduce readers to a plentiful cast of characters that are so deeply human in a way that a lot of horror novels don't get into with secondary characters. Once the action picks up, though, it doesn't slow down. The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is that the ending felt a little too light on details.

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sav_22's review

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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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aimzthereader's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Holy moly this book is sooo good! Who knew I needed a book about killer mermaids? Also I am never going in the ocean again. I will say I was not expecting as much science as this book offered but I found it very interesting. It took a bit to get used to the pacing of this book because it moves at a slower pace especially initially then you would think a scifi horror would. There were also scenes where it would be moving very quicklly and then slow down so the pacing took a bit to get used to but it mae a lot of sense. This book is literal perfection , it even made me care about the characters which I tend not to when I know there is a possibility that they can die. Overall this book was very well done, very enterttaining and is one that will stick with me for a long time

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beccaand's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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shadestate's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Loved the premise and most of the book. The ending felt a bit rushed, but I think that's because she meant to write a third book to finalise those open ended threads. Loved the world building.

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jjjreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious tense slow-paced

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

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talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

2.0

Very few things in books have made me as irritated as this exchange (edited slightly for brevity):

"If they have a language -- not just one language, but two languages, one spoken and one not -- and if the complexity of their spoken language is anything like the complexity of their singing, they must be sentient."
"Cats meow and know what they're saying. Birds sing. That doesn't make them smart."
"There's a lot of difference between a song that basically says, 'Hey, come fuck me' over and over again and a distinct, signed language."

Let's unpack some of this!

1) Sentience =/= (human-like) intelligence. Most animals are recognized as sentient beings; this is the entire point of animal welfare.
2) There are some debates around applying labels of intelligence to animals, but since it seems mostly accepted in this setting that animals (like dolphins) are capable of intelligence, it is very widely studied and accepted, even beyond deeply scientific spheres (thus not even really justifying the character without a background in science expressing this view), that birds* possess some level of quantifiable intelligence.
3) If it is specifically on the basis of "distinct language"**, many bird species do in fact use this, and not just for mating calls! Even if you look beyond stereotypically smart corvids and parrots, who are famously capable of mimicking human speech, plenty of birds have complex call/song systems to indicate danger (for instance, chickadees have varying calls depending on the exact predator they've spotted) and other purposes.

* I'm ignoring cats as an example because I don't know enough to counter that, but I'm sure saying they're not smart is not true either.
** This seems weird in and of itself when most animal intelligence surveys focus on memory, reasoning, learning ability, tool use, etc, but communication can be studied as a signifier of intelligence so I won't nitpick it as hard.

The lack of cursory research in this very basic area -- not to mention frequent references to "us," implying modern primates, "leaving/coming from the sea," with continuous implications that such an exit was because of a humanoid competitor, which just shows a poor understanding of evolution all around (especially when the character saying it has multiple biology degrees), and some other nitpicks (like forgetting the existence of lungfish) -- stripped any interest I otherwise would have had in various other scientific tangents, since I was no longer confident enough in the author's knowledge to trust her descriptions. The hard sci-fi angle feels (if you'll excuse the slight pun) shallow, with the author seemingly wanting to skate by on an introductory biology course and artistic license. To be fair, with speculative fiction some suspension of disbelief is always required -- but if your setting is an explicitly realistic, grounded one filled with ostensibly intelligent, educated scientists, of course I'm going to expect super simple scientific facts to be portrayed accurately.

Though that bit and others alone certainly soured my reading experience, I had a multitude of other problems, to the point where I waffled for a while between 1 and 2 stars for my rating. Ultimately, I suppose I can see where others might enjoy the novel, so I left it at the latter, but it's certainly not a higher-leaning 2 as other books might have been for me.

First and foremost: The writing. Listen, I will cop to the fact that I'm a pretentious person whose writing is reasonably pretentious, but there is a natural level of pretentiousness and then a tryhard one. This is the latter. It, in line with its confidently spoken but dubiously accurate scientific tangents, tries so hard to be smart and unique that it wraps back around into being insufferable to read. More than a few lines seem to be written just to be quotable and poetic, since in context they're jarringly out of place -- notably, one description of a bulge in a character's pocket as, instead of just belonging to the gun he has on him, "[speaking] of gunfire and violence." The dialogue in particular is stilted and weird and very far from natural human speech, which is kind of ironic considering how crucial a theme communication is. In general, the purple prose Grant weaves is, while superficially elegant, against the purpose of the novel: A thriller fundamentally does not work when there's enough breathing room to drag out extensive descriptions and work in paragraphs of background information and introspection on the characters and their lines of work.

As for those characters, I found them painfully uninteresting and difficult to connect to. Stories like this, where anyone can, at least in theory, die, require that kind of investment -- a character death is, to me, meaningless if it provokes no particular emotion. Character backstories are fleshed out to an almost unnecessary degree, and yet I couldn't tell you who most of the characters were as people, what their interests (beyond, in many cases, science) were, what their defining personality traits were. Characterization depends more on what the story needs than what actually fits the character's personality or feels like something an actual human would do, resulting in a lot of questionable and outright idiotic decisions. Some secondary characters are only introduced after the 70% mark, and others only shortly before then, when the action requires their existence. Other characters disappear for chapters on end or full stop, their final fate a mystery. Nothing is done to distinguish different characters' narration (which is presented in third-person omniscient already, another strike against attempted suspense) or dialogue; if you struck names and some descriptions from the dolphins' brief perspective, it would blend in seamlessly with every other PoV.

It's also difficult to react to character deaths when none of the in-universe reactions are especially strong. An exploration of different expressions of grief -- and the complications that would lead to when action was necessitated -- could have fit in really neatly and not disrupted too badly from the plot, but emotional beats are given very little time to linger before pushing onto the next sequence, leading to weird moments that don't fit into the current stakes or tone at all. One could argue that few characters are given the time to process matters and react appropriately, and of course there's no one right way to respond to bereavement, but when the reactions are lackluster all across the board -- with one or two notable exceptions -- that doesn't hold up as well. Deceased characters are also rarely acknowledged after the fact, with even Tory's sister, whose pre-novel death drives her motivation, only coming up in critical moments.

The pacing, in general, was pretty poor. At least 40% of the novel could have been trimmed out to its benefit -- it takes a while for the plot to really kick in, and then it drags on for a long time only to rush into its ending. Some character/setting details don't come up until they're absolutely necessary, leading to a couple of deus ex machina moments rather than more reasonable foreshadowing. The final major reveal comes across as contrived at best, and an ass-pull contradictory to former established facts at worst, with some prior sprinklings of hints but nothing strong enough to really justify it as a proper conclusion, and things wrap up without properly resolving either the plot as a whole or any characters' lives.

Some character dynamics were interesting -- Jillian and Theo's, for instance, as well as Tory and Luis's friendship, and as unlikable as both individuals were there was a certain intrigue to Jacques and Michi's relationship -- but the forced romantic subplot was not one of them. The first two interactions between Tory and Olivia have them on hostile terms; after starting to resolve their differences, their very next interaction establishes infatuation with no lead-in or room to develop. Their relationship itself forms awkwardly and under odd circumstances, and how underdeveloped they both are as characters eroded any potential for chemistry.

As for the actual plot, it was fine -- a bit too close to a corny Syfy movie in some places, but I did like the basic ideas and some developments as well as the multimedia format used in between parts (however grating some of the actual content thereof was). Even if it was handled poorly, I liked the basic gist of the ultimate twist, and in general felt like the sirens -- the very central point of the novel -- were relegated to mere plot elements and not truly explored in as great detail as they could have been.

On the representation side of things: The three major characters of color, I felt, were depicted awkwardly at best. Whiteness is, overall, presented as the default in character descriptions, with characters of color quickly established as such but white characters pretty much never specified to be so. Furthermore, any cultural connection is stripped down to centuries-long whaling in Michi's family -- referenced as dubious motivation for her being a big game hunter who kills for the (sometimes explicitly sexual) thrill, things that go completely against traditional Japanese whaling values; historical whaling practices are not equivalent to the modern commercialized form thereof -- and Jillian's connection to the sea and appearance. Luis's Mexican heritage is only mentioned once or twice. Another major character has a Hebrew middle name, as revealed in one scene, but her religion/ethnicity are never really established outside of that. Though the setting isn't necessarily one that allows for extensive exploration of character backgrounds and habits, that doesn't seem to matter anywhere else, so some effort to acknowledge upbringing and language, if nothing else, could have at least been extended.

I found the disabled/neurodivergent representation more palatable, although I have my issues with it as well. While the basic mechanics of Theo's chronic illness and the Wilson twins' deafness are portrayed decently enough, at least the latter two and their older sister's characterizations seem to revolve around being d/Deaf, and around the hardships thereof by extension. Olivia being autistic, while adequately coded throughout (if a bit constrained to social difficulties and overlooking other traits), is also only explicitly mentioned when ableism faced from her parents is mentioned. Portraying ableism experienced, as well as difficulties of navigating an inherently inaccessible society, is obviously an important part of portraying disabled characters, but it can drag a bit to see disabled characters almost exclusively experiencing trauma and adversity. Speaking as an autistic and physically disabled person -- yes, being disabled is hard! Experiencing ableism is hard! But disabled lives are not composed entirely of strife and pain, and seeing some joy to offset the largely negative experiences would have helped a lot.
I was a bit uncomfortable with the descriptions of Holly's voice as well, which came across as varyingly infantilizing and dehumanizing, but I'm not d/Deaf/HoH so YMMV on that.

All in all, there are some strong ideas at play in Into the Drowning Deep, but unfortunately, in my eyes it fails as both science fiction and horror, with its many flaws detracting majorly from what positives it does have going for it.

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marareading's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Wow. I am not a horror reader, but this has me glued! So good! The pacing is so good. Such a great balance of story and scary. It was thrilling, mysterious, and I didn't feel like it had any elements of scary moments or gore that weren't there to move the story. It was great. I loved the sapphic, autism, and ASL rep. I also loved that it wasn't the principal reason for those characters to exist, but added to the story. There was a lot of depth to the characters.

Tory's sister went on the Atargatis ship with a crew to film a documentary for Imagine entertainment company about the potential of mermaids. No one ever returned. However, there was some footage of "killer mermaids" that did return that was never truly proven to be real or not. Now, after several years of research, Tory had a chance to join another crew to go back to the Mariana trench and try to discover the truth. We find out what truth is in the Mariana trench and what may have really happened to the original crew.

This story has a great balance of story and thrills. I would recommend this to readers who don't normally love horror, but do love intense thrillers and don't mind some blood and gore in their story. The end came a bit too quickly for me, but I have heard there may be a sequel? If so I'm in line on release day!

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romiress's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

3.75

I liked the characters, loved the pacing. I feel like the story made a number of jumps that were completely unnecessary - and the ending was very abrupt.

The whole 'we can talk to Dolphins' could have been cut out without issue - it felt weird? It also felt like they were way smarter at sign language for the first 3/4 of the book and then at the last minute it went more realistic and did a basic 'me tarzan, you jane' exchange.

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owenblacker's review

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adventurous dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Mira Grant is the horror nom-de-plume of Seanan McGuire — 3× Hugo-winner (and 20 more noms), 2× Locus-winner (7 more noms), 1× Nebula-winner, 2× Tiptree honouree, John W Campbell-winner, Philip K Dick ﬁnallist, 3× WFA nom’d, 2× Endeavour nom’d, 1× Sidewise nom’d, 1x BFA nom’d, 1× Shirley Jackson nom’d.

Normally, Mira Grant is someone who I buy the moment I see her work available for pre-order, since having discovered her work with her “political conspiracy theories with zombies and bloggers” novel Feed. That said, a lot of her work gets published through Subterranean Press, who make beautiful books but which are expensive in print and not always available as UK ebooks. That is pretty much the only reason I can think that it took me until now to read her 2017 novel Into the Drowning Deep, which follows on from her 2015 novella Rolling in the Deep, which I have also yet to read.

In the best of cryptid horror traditions, the Drowning Deep tales feature mermaids who dispense with the conventional beauty bullshit and concentrate on luring sailors to their deaths. To be clear, the luring is very much optional; they’ll absolutely come to you. Seven years after a reality TV network sent a mockumentary crew to the Mariana Trench to “prove whether mermaids are real” and the ship was lost with all hands, the sister of one of the crew joins a return to the Trench, aiming to prove that the loss of the Atargatis was not a hoax — and hoping not only to prove the existence of mermaids but to be able to study one.

Obviously, they discover that mermaids do exist — and that they are in no way friendly, as chai ♡ put it in their review, “the so-called lovely ladies of the sea exist, and they are out for slaughter” — because otherwise it would be a pretty dull horror story but, as with every Mira Grant tale that I’ve read, she excels at pacing the tension and slow-reveal of the details, so that you end the book not only having enjoyed the journey but also feeling like you’ve learned something, not just about the ﬁctional world she’s created, but at the real world too. Freya Marske put it well in her Goodreads review:

This book has my gratitude for managing to perfectly capture the way it feels to watch a Jurassic Park movie: you know from the opening moments there’s gonna be lots of science and musings on the hubris of humanity and also like 60% of the cast is gonna die bloodily.

I cannot recommend Mira Grant highly enough; if you are even slightly interested in intelligent horror stories, you should seek out and devour her every word. It had been far too long since I’d read any of her work and, while knowing she’s an absolute favourite author, I had forgotten quite how much starting one of her books was like falling into the arms of a friend for a reassuring hug. Albeit a hug with an alarmingly high body count and a lot of mortal terror.

Grant identiﬁes as bi or pansexual and as demisexual; our main protagonist in Into the Drowning Deep is a bisexual woman and there is a romance with an autistic gay woman on-ship. Also, there are people of colour, most of the scientists are women and 2 of them are Deaf — accompanied by their also-PhD-qualiﬁed sister, who Sign-interprets for them — as well as a there being a wheelchair-using corporate rep in charge. (And there are some dolphins as PoV characters.) Seanan McGuire makes a point of writing very diverse ﬁction and it’s one of the many things I love about her work. I really must prioritise reading some of her fantasy works, which are published under her legal name.

CN: Lots of death: of humans and animals, with a healthy dose of mortal peril and injury detail on the way. Some ableism and sexism (and maybe also queerphobia, but I forget) from unsympathetic characters. And you might not be too keen on seagoing for a little while afterwards 😉

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