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pistaciaveras 's review for:
And The Ocean Was Our Sky
by Patrick Ness
There are a few authors I will make an effort to read everything they publish, and Patrick Ness is one of them. That said, some of his books are incredible and some come close but ultimately miss the mark. This is one of the latter, for me.
It's a very quick read and the illustrations are beautiful, they add a lot to the story (although they have a way to go to reach the dizzying heights of A Monster Calls) but the brevity means the characterisation suffers and it is hard to immerse myself in a world painted in such broad strokes. The world of the whales is somehow upside down to that of the humans, so our oxygenated air is beneath them and the titular ocean is their sky - it made it phenomenally hard to orient myself at any given time. The whales have technology that I can't quite get my head around, they carry harpoons and a baby whale is found clutching a starfish toy under one fin at one point, I just kept thinking "but how do they swim then?"
This is said to be a version of Moby Dick from the perspective of the whales, which is a book I've not got around to reading yet. Perhaps if I had, this one would make more sense? That said, it was an abstract story at best, beautifully told but I don't think I'd have understood or enjoyed it any more even if I'd got all the references.
It's a very quick read and the illustrations are beautiful, they add a lot to the story (although they have a way to go to reach the dizzying heights of A Monster Calls) but the brevity means the characterisation suffers and it is hard to immerse myself in a world painted in such broad strokes. The world of the whales is somehow upside down to that of the humans, so our oxygenated air is beneath them and the titular ocean is their sky - it made it phenomenally hard to orient myself at any given time. The whales have technology that I can't quite get my head around, they carry harpoons and a baby whale is found clutching a starfish toy under one fin at one point, I just kept thinking "but how do they swim then?"
This is said to be a version of Moby Dick from the perspective of the whales, which is a book I've not got around to reading yet. Perhaps if I had, this one would make more sense? That said, it was an abstract story at best, beautifully told but I don't think I'd have understood or enjoyed it any more even if I'd got all the references.