A review by cassarootle
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus

emotional tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The prose of this book was incredible and I thoroughly enjoyed the structure - in general, the story was great and I loved what they were going for. The strongest aspects were the journey through the whale's stomach & the accuracies of diving and marine biology, as well as the gore (if you could call it that). Just ... the story between the father/son was where it fell flat for me. It was less that it was a novel centred upon those aspects at all, and more how they were executed that felt sour to me.

SPOILERS BELOW

I can fully see what the author was going for, and it did get me invested, but I think the extremes they took the characters (the father being genuinely emotionally abusive, possibly threatened violence on him, and the fact that it got so bad that Jay preferred to couch surf from the age of 15 than live with him) made it clear that it was extremely unhealthy for Jay. And while I also agree that Jay's insistence on not seeing Mitt as he was dying was probably a product of egocentrism and pride and would have felt extremely shitty to Mitt, I didn't really find that the book put the both of their sins on appropriate measuring when it came down to it. And I really did not like the way he was treated by the rest of his family, his sisters especially.

That being said, I still found myself endeared by the character the whale took on. While I think this book was meant to be read literally, and I usually prefer those interpretations, I'm actually inclined to think that it works better if you interpret the whale's voice as a hallucination.

I may just be really cynical, as I also happen to be a son estranged from his father by choice, but I think the book would work a lot better if their sins were scaled down somewhat. While what his father does isn't inherently evil, the way the flashbacks of those moments are written really makes it feel like Jay is genuinely scared of Mitt, and I found that difficult to stomach when they resolve things.
 

But as strong as my criticisms of that are, I don't think it hindered my enjoyment detrimentally overall, hence the high rating based purely off the positive aspects. The rest of it was really, really strong & I'm willing to admit my perspective is marred by personal experience.
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