A review by theseasoul
Aquanaut by Rick Stanton

adventurous challenging hopeful informative inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

|| 5 ⭐️ ||

Aquanaut is a stellar deep-dive into the story of the Thai cave rescue as well as Rick Stanton’s history and various experiences in cave diving throughout his life. This book goes into even more detail than did the documentary on the rescue, which I watched a year or two ago and was awestruck by. In reading Aquanaut, I was once again thoroughly engaged. It’s a stunning, thrilling, suspenseful true story, and I was kind of glad I already knew where it was going to end up, because even so the book had me on the edge of my seat the whole time.

It was super interesting to get more insight into Rick’s life and background in cave diving, since I don’t remember there being as much of that in the documentary. There were detailed accounts of many of his past major diving projects, rescues, and recoveries. My interest never once wavered.

Despite my love of the water and desire to get my diving license someday, I don’t think cave diving is something I could do, nor would want to do. But it only increases my admiration of the people brave and skilled enough to do extreme things like this. Especially when, in the end, it leads to lives being saved. 

|| Content warnings ||

F-bombs are thrown around a lot. Drowning and death are a major theme. Some medical content and a few graphic mentions of bodily fluid.