Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
Published November 17, 2017 by Run For It
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
I’ll start by saying that I really wanted to like this book. It was one where I did read the synopsis, and it sounded like it would be a fun horror story with a bit of mystery mixed in. I think that was what the author was going for, it just didn’t work for me. The story progresses for the sake of plot without supporting character development, and some important interactions occur completely off-page. For example, the reader is told that certain characters have become close during their journey, but none of it is shown on page. Meanwhile, it is explained that the ceiling of one level of a ship is the floor of the level above it. Information with no purpose should have been trimmed so that we could see more of the characters growth without risking a bloated novel.
Intro the Drowning Deep takes place in 2015, with the female main character (FMC) agreeing to a research voyage in hopes of finding answers about her sister’s death. Most of the book occurs on a ship over the Mariana Trench, though there are a few other locations early in the story. The voyage goes wrong, like the previous voyage to film a documentary, and the cast of characters have to find a way to get out alive.
Spoilers Ahead
The FMC is a marine biologist working on her Ph.D. and she is one of 400 scientists aboard the research vessel that will travel to the Mariana Trench. The previous vessel had been attacked by mermaids, with some of the attack caught on camera, with no survivors to speak to the authenticity of the video. The new voyage presents an opportunity for scientists to explore the existence of mermaids in the Mariana Trench, as well as pursue other research involving ocean waters.
Once the ship is over the trench, and deep waters have been visited, things start to go very wrong very quickly. Creatures begin to attack the ship, killing anyone that they come across and dragging many of their bodies into the ocean. Most of the deaths occur off-page, with the poor character development preventing any impact from the on-page deaths. People that are supposedly the top of their fields do things that make no sense with the little information that’s given, and nobody asks obvious questions or acts in a logical way. You can tell that the author had specific plot points that she wanted to reach, she just didn’t do the work to get us there organically.
During the story we spend most of the time focused on the FMC, but we do get to see the POV of dolphins and the monsters. I don’t know why, it didn’t enhance the story at all. If anything, not trying to humanize the monsters through their POV would have built a little more tension. Why are they doing this? How are they doing it so effectively? What brought them to the Mariana Trench in the first place? Instead, readers are spoon-fed information for the sake of a predictable plot.
We see the creatures described as faster than the eye can follow, but the FMC out-runs and out-swims them. There are multiple mysteries that must be solved to save the day, but none of that happens. The survivors that we read about only made it through conveniences, without any believable struggle. I wish that I could describe more, but I finished this book still waiting for the real story to begin. If the irrelevant information was removed, and the writing was cleaned up, you might have a YA short horror story.
If it still sounds appealing and the issues I described don’t bother you, then you might have a great time with this book. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t for me.
I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read this book. Would you recommend that I try something else by this author? Leave it in the comments below.
justanotherreader 