Book #2 - The Abyss Surrounds Us
The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie
The book is set in a dystopian future and told from the point of view of Cassandra Leung. She trains beasts to defend ships from pirates. At age 17, on her first voyage, her beast is killed and she is kidnapped by pirates.
Someone else described it as »YA Pacific Rim meets pirates with lesbians.«
Considering I thought the basic premise behind Pacific Rim was ludicrous, it wasn't surprising that I thought the same about this book, too.
Before I go any further, let me tell you: I did not like this book. I finished it because I want to beat my challenge and so I could write a proper review.
The good parts first:
+ I liked the main character okay
+ The training and everything concerning the turtle-like animal is well thought out
+ I also liked the fight scenes and the one action scene where Cas and Swift run through the Flotilla
+ I liked the character of Swift
Now for the bad parts:
- I never managed to immerse myself in the story. Right in the first chapter, the author describes the world in a way that makes it clear that she lives in the 20th century, not inside Cassandra Leung, Reckoner trainer. This is the main problem I had with the whole book. The author does not convince me that she is telling the story from her chosen POV character's POV. There are more examples of this throughout the book. She compares the beast's training to a cat jumping after a laser pointer - not bloody likely a girl who grew up in the water with huge beasts around her would use this simile. Or she compares sitting on her beast to "how a cow being lifted up by a tornado" might feel. I could go on. I got thrown out of the story in this way several times, and it was just too much.
- The love story was weird. Fwiw, it had better build-up than the last book I complained about, and nice conflict, too. The problematic aspect of the captive falling in love with her captor was addressed, too, and handled okay. I actually liked the relationship, although I thought their kiss was forced. It felt like the requisite scene in an action movie. It was either that or no kiss at all. I wouldn't have minded a bit more kissing or some more conflicted venturing into grey areas.
- Call me crazy, but I thought the whole romance aspect was completely destroyed at the end by the revelation about Swift. I could understand that Cassandra would hate her, then, so it made in-character sense. But why would the author choose to end the book this way? I wonder why everyone loved the romance in this book so much - I can only explain it with the fact that there is way too little f/f romance around, so the bar isn't very high, maybe?
- I hated, with all my heart, the fist fight scenes on board the pirate vessel. Does every YA book have to have organized playfights now? Argh.
- The ending was almost exactly what I expected. In fact, it was what I'd feared for half the story. Cassandra complains about pirates all book long, and then she becomes one? All it made me think is that her Stockholm syndrome really got to her in the end, after all. Why, oh, why?
- The secondary characters weren't well developed (although to be fair, the book was pretty short).
- Just for completeness's sake: OMG why would anyone choose to raise huge beasts to protect ships? WTF.
- The whole worldbuilding was very limited. Cassandra obviously had only a limited grasp of how her world works, and why pirates exist. It comes through in their visit to the Flotilla a bit, but it's never explicitly addressed. My problem here is that I don't actually think the problem lies with Cassandra but with the author. The author obviously wasn't able to really write from Cass's POV in every other aspect, so why would she manage here? I'm thinking the author herself hasn't thought this through.
I am glad I got through it. It wasn't all that long, so it went quickly at least. On to the next one!
** - 2 of 5 stars
1 - 4 stars - The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet [DW]
2 - 2 stars - The Abyss Surrounds Us
x-posted from dw (comments:
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