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A review by signemai
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
Did not finish book.
DNF at 26%
I feel really bad for not finishing this and then writing a review about it. At some point I just realised that when I put it down, I did not want to pick it back up again, and trying to fight it was such a waste of time. I also feel bad for giving it 1 star. I think it could probably be a 2 if I could be bothered to finish it.
This book had me hooked from the prologue. It started off incredibly intriguing and almost scary.
Then it went downhill from there.
My biggest problem with this novel was the characters. I am mostly a character driven reader, so when the characters aren’t good, I’m done.
It wasn’t that the characters themselves were bad, it was just that they were written badly. I never believed they were real. The dialogue never seemed like anything anyone would ever say. The motivations - though real enough - were over-explained and too in-your-face. There was constant exposition, and not enough 'figuring things out yourself'. I was never immersed in the characters’ stories and backgrounds, because they were always told, never shown. And they were always told in one big blur, pages long of exposition and character motivation and backgrounds… like the character was telling us their life story on every single page.
I wish I could give you examples, but then I would have to go re-read them. The scene in which I knew I probably wasn’t going to finish this book was when one of the many main characters (the tall hot ASL translator!) went to have a bath, then sat naked in a hot tub with another of the main characters (the hot reporter!) and had an exposition-y conversation about … being naked?
(Oh and by the way, this might be an exaggeration, but almost half of the story is told in brackets. I really hate brackets).
That being said, I feel really sad and guilty that I couldn’t finish this. I really wanted to get to the lesbian parts, and the parts where the mermaids (hopefully) appear and kill everyone. Maybe then I would feel sorry for some of the characters.
It's not that it was all bad though. If you don't have a problem with any of the things I listed above, I'm pretty sure it'll be an interesting read for you! Here are some of the things that were done well enough:
- The science is really well explained and an interesting part of the story
- The plot is probably great? The premise was certainly intriguing
- The narrative and structure is interesting. I loved the prologue so much, and I loved all the news paper snippets. What I mean with narrative is that the characters keep changing POV, which is great. The problem was just that the characters didn't have unique voices, so I couldn't tell them apart.
This book just wasn't for me! I have come to realise that I'm way too picky when it comes to writing style.
I feel really bad for not finishing this and then writing a review about it. At some point I just realised that when I put it down, I did not want to pick it back up again, and trying to fight it was such a waste of time. I also feel bad for giving it 1 star. I think it could probably be a 2 if I could be bothered to finish it.
This book had me hooked from the prologue. It started off incredibly intriguing and almost scary.
Then it went downhill from there.
My biggest problem with this novel was the characters. I am mostly a character driven reader, so when the characters aren’t good, I’m done.
It wasn’t that the characters themselves were bad, it was just that they were written badly. I never believed they were real. The dialogue never seemed like anything anyone would ever say. The motivations - though real enough - were over-explained and too in-your-face. There was constant exposition, and not enough 'figuring things out yourself'. I was never immersed in the characters’ stories and backgrounds, because they were always told, never shown. And they were always told in one big blur, pages long of exposition and character motivation and backgrounds… like the character was telling us their life story on every single page.
I wish I could give you examples, but then I would have to go re-read them. The scene in which I knew I probably wasn’t going to finish this book was when one of the many main characters (the tall hot ASL translator!) went to have a bath, then sat naked in a hot tub with another of the main characters (the hot reporter!) and had an exposition-y conversation about … being naked?
(Oh and by the way, this might be an exaggeration, but almost half of the story is told in brackets. I really hate brackets).
That being said, I feel really sad and guilty that I couldn’t finish this. I really wanted to get to the lesbian parts, and the parts where the mermaids (hopefully) appear and kill everyone. Maybe then I would feel sorry for some of the characters.
It's not that it was all bad though. If you don't have a problem with any of the things I listed above, I'm pretty sure it'll be an interesting read for you! Here are some of the things that were done well enough:
- The science is really well explained and an interesting part of the story
- The plot is probably great? The premise was certainly intriguing
- The narrative and structure is interesting. I loved the prologue so much, and I loved all the news paper snippets. What I mean with narrative is that the characters keep changing POV, which is great. The problem was just that the characters didn't have unique voices, so I couldn't tell them apart.
This book just wasn't for me! I have come to realise that I'm way too picky when it comes to writing style.