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A review by roadtripreader
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Sleeper, arise!
This kid is seventeen! Coming of age dialed up to 1000. Also all those reviewers minimizing this story because it's "dADDy iSSues inside a wHAle" are nincompoops or leftover squid in the belly of a whale honestly. It's a whole original work and this impossible event would not have even occured without almost 2 decades of the daily abuse (not daDDy iSsuEs) of Jay Gardiner by Mitt Gardiner. That man was a fucking misunderstood nightmare-broken-soul, I too would get swallowed by a whale whilst trying to get out from his dead and water-buried shadow and simultaneously reconcile and make peace with him. FFS.
It was gripping and I love the writing style, short scenes, short chapters - all bursting with soo many visual accents, smells, fears and traumas - sometimes, just hints other times massive waves of it. What an experience.
I would watch this movie and bawl my damn eyes out like I did for The Pianist
Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Jay is on a mission to find his emotionally abusive father's remains on the ocean floor. Remains of the skeleton variety. It's a morbid goal. It's throw-up inducing and that's at the beginning when it's just him and the ocean bed. And the whale. My god the Whale. There be precious cargo in that belly.
Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
●Jay has been emotionally abused by his father his entire life - he calls the experience "the jaws of his father swallowing him whole". Enter the whale.
●Man the whale is just doing his business, living his life eating things - it ain't his fault a scrawny human got sucked in with the giant squid. Like I can hear it going: welp...oops sorry dude. If I could upchuck you I would.
Mitt Gardiner is on my Top Ten List of: I hate you but I get you He wants Jay to be him but better. He is so smart but not socially acute, a fierce protector of the ocean he's all fire, action and less talk or reasoning. Mitt feels like his wings were clipped but he did the clipping and resents the world for it. Funny enough, by 1228 PSI, I started to see him the way he wishedto be seen and by 998 - I mourned old Mitt for a life he could've lived if he had just unclenched.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene:
🌸The abyss Speaks: TAK! It was chilling.
🌸Sperm whale versus giant squid,Leviathan versus Kraken, rock versus scissors.
🌸2014: Breath, sleepy one of the few tender sweet moments. between father and son. That and "Option Five. The prey becomes so dangerous the predators let him go."
🌸1072 PSI: An Armada of Female Sperm whales😍
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
This book is quoteable. Too many pages anotated it was hard to whittle it down to 3
🖤 “(We failed) “I don’t like this we you keep using. You don’t get to share blame with a whale. The whale didn’t do anything wrong.” (Conversations onside a whale)
🖤 “Stay away from me.” Air from a punched gut: four words Jay’s waited fifteen years to say.” (This whole scene was just bonkers)
🖤 “With their tidy, evenly spaced teeth, pillowy pink tongues, and cheerful faces, orcas look like malevolent clowns, so embroiled in the religion of death their markings resemble skulls.” (A pod of death cometh for Jay's Whale)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Diver's Peace
■ Heiliger's Shauer - The Holy Shiver
■Spermwhale: The Old Father of the Sea
■Click Coda & marguerite formation
■Nitrogeon Narcosis, Beaky
■The Bringer of death: Orcinus orca
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Horror (Survival Fantasy) Books by 2025
This kid is seventeen! Coming of age dialed up to 1000. Also all those reviewers minimizing this story because it's "dADDy iSSues inside a wHAle" are nincompoops or leftover squid in the belly of a whale honestly. It's a whole original work and this impossible event would not have even occured without almost 2 decades of the daily abuse (not daDDy iSsuEs) of Jay Gardiner by Mitt Gardiner. That man was a fucking misunderstood nightmare-broken-soul, I too would get swallowed by a whale whilst trying to get out from his dead and water-buried shadow and simultaneously reconcile and make peace with him. FFS.
It was gripping and I love the writing style, short scenes, short chapters - all bursting with soo many visual accents, smells, fears and traumas - sometimes, just hints other times massive waves of it. What an experience.
I would watch this movie and bawl my damn eyes out like I did for The Pianist
Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Jay is on a mission to find his emotionally abusive father's remains on the ocean floor. Remains of the skeleton variety. It's a morbid goal. It's throw-up inducing and that's at the beginning when it's just him and the ocean bed. And the whale. My god the Whale. There be precious cargo in that belly.
Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
●Jay has been emotionally abused by his father his entire life - he calls the experience "the jaws of his father swallowing him whole". Enter the whale.
●Man the whale is just doing his business, living his life eating things - it ain't his fault a scrawny human got sucked in with the giant squid. Like I can hear it going: welp...oops sorry dude. If I could upchuck you I would.
Mitt Gardiner is on my Top Ten List of: I hate you but I get you He wants Jay to be him but better. He is so smart but not socially acute, a fierce protector of the ocean he's all fire, action and less talk or reasoning. Mitt feels like his wings were clipped but he did the clipping and resents the world for it. Funny enough, by 1228 PSI, I started to see him the way he wishedto be seen and by 998 - I mourned old Mitt for a life he could've lived if he had just unclenched.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene:
🌸The abyss Speaks: TAK! It was chilling.
🌸Sperm whale versus giant squid,Leviathan versus Kraken, rock versus scissors.
🌸2014: Breath, sleepy one of the few tender sweet moments. between father and son. That and "Option Five. The prey becomes so dangerous the predators let him go."
🌸1072 PSI: An Armada of Female Sperm whales😍
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
This book is quoteable. Too many pages anotated it was hard to whittle it down to 3
🖤 “(We failed) “I don’t like this we you keep using. You don’t get to share blame with a whale. The whale didn’t do anything wrong.” (Conversations onside a whale)
🖤 “Stay away from me.” Air from a punched gut: four words Jay’s waited fifteen years to say.” (This whole scene was just bonkers)
🖤 “With their tidy, evenly spaced teeth, pillowy pink tongues, and cheerful faces, orcas look like malevolent clowns, so embroiled in the religion of death their markings resemble skulls.” (A pod of death cometh for Jay's Whale)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Diver's Peace
■ Heiliger's Shauer - The Holy Shiver
■Spermwhale: The Old Father of the Sea
■Click Coda & marguerite formation
■Nitrogeon Narcosis, Beaky
■The Bringer of death: Orcinus orca
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Horror (Survival Fantasy) Books by 2025