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pacifickat's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
However, there was a section toward the middle where
Ultimately this is a story about finding balance, between a traumatic past and a hopeful future, between individual and communal identity, between colonizing forces and indigenous cultures, and between the land and sea itself. It is also about remembering.
"Remember. […] That was all remembering was, prodding them lest they try to move on from things that should not be moved on from. Forgetting is not the same as healing.” - Yetu
"One can only go so long without asking, ‘Who am I? Where do I come from? What does all this mean? What is being? What came before me, and what might come after?’ Without answers there is only a hole, a whole where a history should be that takes the shape of an endless longing. We are cavities.” - Amamba
Yetu bears all of her people’s generational trauma, that is her role as ‘memory keeper’ in a society where long-term memory has largely been erased to give her people the freedom to thrive in the present unhindered by a painful past. She is their matriarch, but she is ill-suited for the role.
"She couldn’t determine which was worse, the pain of the ancestors or the pain of the living. Both fed off her.”
"She learned how to make an inch for herself.”
"She touched each one of them, figuring out how each Wajinru was outside of the oneness the remembrance brought. That mattered. Who each of them was mattered as much as who all of them were together.”
"They could bear it all together.”
It is also a story about the function of memory in culture-making and identity.
In the afterward, The Deep is described as “a game of cumulative telephone.” The concept began as a song and was adapted over time by different musical groups until this novelization was produced.
“Each new telling of The Deep has been productive rather than destructive, and each new iteration has been carried out with admiration for the previous, […] happily taking on adaptations of each new interpreter into the future.”
This is a wonderful description of culture-making, the turning of ‘I’ into ‘we’, of carrying our stories, traumas, and longings together, erasing loneliness in the context of a communal tribe. It is forming collective memory, adapting a shared history into a cohesive perspective, a meaningful and unifying mythology.
"The living put their own mark on the dead.”
Graphic: Death, Self harm, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, and Fire/Fire injury
drowning, shark attacks, birth, biting, neurodivergence, generational trauma, collective traumaadiajamille's review against another edition
4.5
Moderate: Death, Genocide, Racism, Slavery, Kidnapping, and Colonisation
galexy_brain's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I overall enjoyed this book but found the main character, Yetu, quite frustrating. I appreciated that the themes also explored parents misunderstanding their children (notable quote: "Yetu appreciated Amaba's caring nature, but sometimes her gentle chiding turned into chafing, and Yetu was reminded of all that was wrong between them.") and what I interpreted as navigating a neurotypical world as a neurodiverse person.
Minor: Animal death, Child death, Death, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail
titch's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, and Abandonment
Minor: Injury/Injury detail
victorianrogue's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Murder
Moderate: Child death, Sexual content, Slavery, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Death of parent
Minor: Emotional abuse, Genocide, and Racism