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A review by buildhergender
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
5.0
I supposed I should write about the mermaids and the plot of the story for a review...but I am not.
Instead I am going to write about one word. Representation.
It is something that we are starting to see in writing, especially in the science fiction genre but it is so slow and often so many times done half hearted in a "hey I included a gay person give me awards" kind of way.
This is not the case with Mira Grant and this book is just the latest in ones to prove this.
I'm trans and it is so rare to see a trans person in a book. This book doesn't have one, but there is mention of one, a non binary trans person. And it was just mentioned that this person was a former partner of the main protagonist. Them being trans wasn't the big deal, it was just part of the protagonists dating history. And more importantly Mira didn't do the common thing and come out and tell us what gender the non binary person was assigned at birth. She did the same thing with the non-binary character in one of her News Flesh series (being a bit vague as where as I don't want spoilers) and when that character died it hurt reading it, but I have yet to see a fictional representation of a non binary person that has been done as well.
But trans is not the only representation here.
We have people with autism, we have lesbians, bisexual and polysexual.
There are two characters who are twins who are also hearing impaired. And Mira lets us see how the world is for these two characters and it is apparent she did research to make sure she did her best to represent them. A lot of authors would just state someone signed something and give a translation that would be what we would see as grammatically correct. But Mira did her research and it shows as she makes the signing not come over as what people with hearing would expect, but instead as how people using ASL actually talk.
It was a great book if only for all the representation in it, that wasn't there for representation's sake, but instead there because that was who the characters were.
On top of that the story was great and I got hooked and my bathroom book got turned into sit on my bed ignore the cats and ferret until I'm done with it book.
One last thing I would like to mention was a statement from one of the sisters because I have been around a few people with disabilities and I have seen some of the trouble they have to deal with when abled body people assume that what they do or have is not "normal"
At one part of the book one of the girls says something and the characters stop and say "You can talk"
And her response is just as snarky and full of justified anger. "Of course I can talk, but you people can't understand me so i had to learn how to make noise with my mouth."
I passed over this sentence and then got about three paragraphs down before it caught me. I loved it and I really loved this book.
Instead I am going to write about one word. Representation.
It is something that we are starting to see in writing, especially in the science fiction genre but it is so slow and often so many times done half hearted in a "hey I included a gay person give me awards" kind of way.
This is not the case with Mira Grant and this book is just the latest in ones to prove this.
I'm trans and it is so rare to see a trans person in a book. This book doesn't have one, but there is mention of one, a non binary trans person. And it was just mentioned that this person was a former partner of the main protagonist. Them being trans wasn't the big deal, it was just part of the protagonists dating history. And more importantly Mira didn't do the common thing and come out and tell us what gender the non binary person was assigned at birth. She did the same thing with the non-binary character in one of her News Flesh series (being a bit vague as where as I don't want spoilers) and when that character died it hurt reading it, but I have yet to see a fictional representation of a non binary person that has been done as well.
But trans is not the only representation here.
We have people with autism, we have lesbians, bisexual and polysexual.
There are two characters who are twins who are also hearing impaired. And Mira lets us see how the world is for these two characters and it is apparent she did research to make sure she did her best to represent them. A lot of authors would just state someone signed something and give a translation that would be what we would see as grammatically correct. But Mira did her research and it shows as she makes the signing not come over as what people with hearing would expect, but instead as how people using ASL actually talk.
It was a great book if only for all the representation in it, that wasn't there for representation's sake, but instead there because that was who the characters were.
On top of that the story was great and I got hooked and my bathroom book got turned into sit on my bed ignore the cats and ferret until I'm done with it book.
One last thing I would like to mention was a statement from one of the sisters because I have been around a few people with disabilities and I have seen some of the trouble they have to deal with when abled body people assume that what they do or have is not "normal"
At one part of the book one of the girls says something and the characters stop and say "You can talk"
And her response is just as snarky and full of justified anger. "Of course I can talk, but you people can't understand me so i had to learn how to make noise with my mouth."
I passed over this sentence and then got about three paragraphs down before it caught me. I loved it and I really loved this book.