Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #2)

by Mira Grant

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I picked up Into the Drowning Deep after seeing several people talk about how absolutely horrifying it was. I didn't have a great experience with my first Mira Grant book, but this one was written many years after that one and wasn't YA. The idea of a crew being trapped on a ship is also WAY up my alley, so I decided to give it a shot.

Victoria is a scientist whose sister was lost at sea under mysterious circumstances that she believes had to do with mermaids. When given the opportunity to go on a very similar mission to the same location, she takes it, for science and for her sister. Tory is not the only person on this mission, of course. The cast of this book is large and full of scientists, TV personalities, and security. They all have their own reasons for wanting to go on this excursion, but the most interesting to me was Dr. Jillian Toth, the mermaid expert. A mermaid expert in a world where mermaids aren't believed to exist.

For a book about killer mermaids coming after people stranded on a ship, I expected this book to inspire a little more fear. There's lots of action starting once they make it to their location, but getting there takes quite a while. A significant portion of this book is spent on setting up why this voyage is happening, who every single person going is, what their functions are, and even the layout of the ship. Really much more setup than I need in a horror book, but I guess that's personal preference.

The killer mermaid action happens fairly late in the book and wasn't quite as scary as people made it out to be. Tensions were not nearly as high as they could have been and the author really didn't play up the claustrophobia of being stuck and hunted on a ship. There's a revelation that's made out to be earth shattering and I just didn't care that much about it. It really didn't make much difference to the story.

I thought the idea of this book was great! The characters were fine and the romance was even cute (although I'm not sure if we needed romance in a horror at sea book, but okay). The diversity was fantastic and honestly bumped my rating up just a bit. Overall, this book was okay, but I had hoped for a lot more.

Actual rating: 2.5 stars