A review by kingcrookback
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I can't quite put my finger on exactly why, but even though the story felt pretty decidedly medium-paced, this book felt long. Maybe it's the amount of exposition and introspection that's included. It's kind of an odd feeling, especially since I feel like this story could be pretty neatly (and entertainingly) encapsulated within the time constraints of a feature-length film.

First, the positives. With all the exposition, the premise feels sufficiently grounded in modern-day science and technology, even though this is very clearly science fiction. (Warning, though: if you have any climate anxiety, this book might exacerbate that.) Grant's pretty good at building tension, especially via dramatic irony. While the story is generally told in third person limited POV, sometimes the perspective will "zoom out" at the end of a passage and you'll get a glimpse just outside of the characters' perspectives. It feels very cinematic. I also appreciated that Grant wrote ethnic, queer, and disabled diversity directly into the story--and my appreciation for this is twofold. On the one hand, as a woman of color, I liked that some of the diversity had absolutely nothing to do with the plot. People in real life aren't non-white/queer for "a reason," and for too long creators have hidden behind narrative relevance as an excuse for not being diverse in their depictions. And on the other hand, as a disabled person, I also enjoyed that some of that diversity served a narrative function.

...however. There are some things about this book that I didn't enjoy, the pacing being one of them. The semi-epistolary introductions for each of the "acts" of the novel were interesting...for maybe the first half. After that, they didn't have much of an impact. I didn't feel a connection to any of the characters--which is not to say that I didn't like them. I just didn't care enough about them to form any feelings for them either way. (Except for Jacques Abney. His self-aggrandizing internal dialogue grated on my nerves. Points to Grant for that one, I guess.)

There were also some scenes/character actions that strained my credulity to the point of annoyance. I don't mean the suspension of disbelief necessary that allowed me to buy into the story's basic premise: sirens in the Mariana Trench; that part's fine. But some of the characters' internal dialogues and interactions just struck me as kind of weird. For example, sure, conventionally attractive people are generally aware that they're conventionally attractive and that there are both privileges and expectations associated with that, especially if they're women. It signals a sense of both self-awareness and social wariness for a character to be aware of that--but it felt so weird for characters to think and say it so explicitly and in such a blasé way. It doesn't hit the ear as natural-sounding dialogue or natural-feeling social interaction. Some of the minor characters' logic is also completely opaque to me. Specifically,
when Daryl, the younger engineer, somehow came to the conclusion that the sirens had "someone on the inside" helping them with the hunt/slaughter. Try as I might, I can't fathom what path of logic would have led him to that assumption. Even hysterical panic, which he did not seem to be in, doesn't explain it, in my opinion.


This is one of the few books I'm actually giving a star rating, and that's because I didn't really enjoy it all that much. With most of my other reads, while I can detect their flaws, I can usually find some kind of value in them (ex: it speaks to the times, the social climate, etc.). The flaws in this book just got on my nerves.
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