A review by suneaters
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

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

3.75

A really new and creative take on an old favorite—mermaids! I loved the thought McGuire (Mira Grant is Seanan McGuire's pen name) put into mermaid biology. The uniqueness of her concepts really sold it for me and entertained me into  enjoying this book. When the book focuses on the mermaids and the Tory-Olivia dynamic, it's really good. I was on the edge of my seat through the action. There's some mildly homophobic and overall extremely idiotic politically-charged statements because McGuire thinks her terrible takes are so important to this mermaid story—"She just was pickier about personalities than
she was about genders", okay gay people are shallow genital fetishists take number 500, lesbians are mean and nasty (especially to bisexuals even though in this book bisexual Victoria Stewart is mean to lesbian Olivia Sanderson for no reason at first so...lol), dolphins are philosophical geniuses, and sex-segregated facilities are "gender essentialist" because fuck women apparently—, but it's mostly able to be ignored. I enjoyed the characters as well overall. Victoria/Tory is kind of annoying sometimes and she randomly get plot armor that nobody else has. Olivia is great and I liked her the best overall. Hallie Wilson's little sisters Holly and Heather were fun, but overall sort of forgettable. Jason Rothman, Tory's ex-boyfriend, is also forgettable. Like, I forgot about him and the rich kid cryptozoologist writing this review. Jacques and Michi Abney are cartoon characters. Jillian Toth and Theodore Blackwell are less forgettable, but just scream wasted potential to me. What does Dr. Toth hope to achieve? Couldn't we see disabled Blackwell's need for things to go well out of concern for his wife Jillian and the crew? , but the ending felt rushed. Obviously, the one
mermaid that the people still have sets up a potential sequel, but I didn't feel like everything really wrapped up in a satisfactory way.
The dolphins bit was also a bit out there and didn't really work for me.
I was still really sad when they died though.
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