The Deep

by Alma Katsu

[HekArtemis]

Okay, I have a lot to say and I can't say it without going into spoilers, so sorry about that.

Ondine... the baby is named Ondine. Like the water spirit/nymph. How oddly coincidental that the baby is named Ondine, and she was named that before any of the relevant events took place around water so it's nothing to do with the actual supernatural stuff of the story, it's just an odd coincidence. A coincidence that literally no one notices, meaning it's an easter egg added in by the author and only myth nerds like me would get it. But it just made me roll my eyes.

I appreciated that this story shone a bit of a spotlight on how women are treated like crazy idiots all the time. The women in this story were gaslit all the time, treated like they were stupid, told they were imagining things, and they kept having to stop and take absolute control of every emotion because if they didn't they would be quickly accused of being hysterical. Any emotion a woman has = hysteria! So it was an interesting look at that. However...

First of all, given this idea of women being so crazy, the very beginning when Annie is released from the mental hospital as being not-crazy, becomes very unrealistic because, well, no, she is odd and fearful so of course they would force her to stay in the hospital. In the real world.

The female doctor on the Titanic keeps thinking to herself that all of the women around her are hysterical or verging on hysteria. A female doctor.

Worst of all though was the fact that the author wrote this story to make all the women actually hysterical, out of control, overly emotional, crazy. I mean seriously, one of them tries to drown another because she has no reflection.... IN THE DARK! No one has a reflection in the dark ffs. So yeah, sure, the book takes a look at how women are treated like we're crazy, but then it actually makes all the women crazy and kind of justifies how women are constantly doubted. Thanks, I hate it.

I don't like drug addiction/abuse in stories, because of personal experiences with drug addicts. I also find myself often very uncomfortable in a not good way when reading about people doubting their sanity - again because of personal stuff. So a book that has drug abuse and everyone acting crazy kind of makes me feel nope.

That said, the reveal of what actually killed the servant boy was cool, imo. That he took the jewellery of Caroline, a drug addict, and that jewel was full of drugs and he overdosed on said drugs. Well of course, and what a good catch that was. I also was cool with the idea of similar being the cause of Ondines decline. Personally I was thinking that Caroline was accidentally drugging Ondine via her jewellery leaking drugs onto the baby whenever she was being held. Doing it on purpose made little sense to me. To discover that Annie was doing it though, I just noped hard on that one. It was ridiculous.

The reporters final thoughts are him thinking about how he loves the 13yo prostituted child he raped years ago. Yeah, that is how I want a mans story to end, him declaring love for a child he raped. Awesome, thanks.

Many of the POVs were, why? I think Annie and Mark would have been enough. Maybe the addition of the reporter guy, Maddie, and Caroline would be fine too. But Dai didn't make much sense really. Though I didn't mind his POV, I don't think it added a whole lot. Especially when it also included a scene that was never finished - wherein he and Les are caught just after having sex (being both men this would be very bad in the early 1900s) by an unnamed woman. The scene just cuts off and we go to another POV and, no resolution, nothing happens, nothing comes of it. So, why was it added when it did nothing and went nowhere? I did like the end of their story though, Les pushing Dai into the boat.

And finally the supernatural element of the story. So I am getting so close to the end and I am suddenly thinking, "Wait, it's almost done and nothing has bloody happened except a boy died and a woman almost drowned another woman. Is this going to be one of those 'it was all in their heads' stories in the end?" And the closer it got to the end the more convinced I became that yeah, this was not going to actually be supernatural, it was going to be one of those awful "tricked you haha" books, and I was starting to feel pretty mad about it because I was wanting proper horror, not this crap. In the end there is a supernatural element, I guess, because really it could be read the other way I reckon. I am like 90% sure it is meant to leave you feeling like there was a ghost, there was a possession, there was a sea queen. But... all of that stuff could have just been Annie is crazy and that explains all of it. And I am angry about it. Seriously mad. And even if we say yes for sure it was supernatural, all I can say to that is that it was the worst most annoying stupid tame and not at all horror-ish supernatural that has ever supernaturaled. I am so angry.

I was really wanting some good supernatural Titanic horror. Instead I got a story about a crazy obsessed girl. A crazy obsessed woman who died and sacrificed her baby for a man. A crazy obsessed drugged woman who drove another woman to suicide, the mother of the baby she bought. A stupid man who steals from his wife so he can gamble it away. An old man who rapes trafficked teenage girls and calls it love. A crazy pregnant woman who tries to drown other women. And two gay/bi men who are con artists.

So it's a story about crazy women and dumb criminal men. Fantastic. I never would have read this if I knew that beforehand.