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A review by notyourdaddy
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
3.0
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC of Whalefall by Daniel Kraus in exchange for an honest review. I was asked to wait to post this review until a month before this book’s release date.
Jay Gardiner is on a mission: find his dead father’s remains at the bottom of the ocean. Sure, therapy would be easier, but whatever works for you. While in the water, he encounters a giant squid that grabs on and holds on while it is swallowed by a massive sperm whale. Jay, relying on a lifetime of lessons he learned from his late father, must figure out how to escape the belly of this beast, and process his grief at the same time.
This was such an interesting read. After reading the blurb for this book, I was expecting a man vs nature type of action/thriller. What I got instead was a kind of psychological thriller that also took place inside of a whale’s stomach. It was really fun, up until the last 20% or so. After that I feel like it got kind of weird. I think that was the vibe that Kraus was going for, but I think he overshot the mark on this one. It was so disconnected from reality that I wasn’t really sure what was going on most of the time. It made it difficult to follow the storyline.
If you don’t like flashbacks, this book is not for you. It is absolutely riddled with flashback scenes. It can make it hard to follow along sometimes, but you get used to it after a few chapters. I thought that they were a bit excessive. That being said, after you got used to the writing style of this book, it was actually pretty interesting. It was almost like a stream of consciousness type of deal, but there was also enough structure that you didn’t get lost in the rambling. Things get more and more unhinged as the book goes on and it was kind of interesting to watch Jay get more and more desperate. I felt like I could feel his panic and it stressed me out while I was reading.
The writing was just incredible. Especially the descriptive language. I feel like I know exactly what the inside of a whale feels like. I know what a giant squid feels like. It was all so vivid and it made me miss the ocean. I could go on and on about how much I loved the descriptions in this book. I feel like some authors skimp on this a little, relying on the readers to fill in the details with their imaginations. I really appreciate an author that actually sets a scene and creates a character from scratch.
Overall, I give this book 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for Goodreads. The ending was just a little too weird for me, and I wasn’t expecting it to be so psychological.
Jay Gardiner is on a mission: find his dead father’s remains at the bottom of the ocean. Sure, therapy would be easier, but whatever works for you. While in the water, he encounters a giant squid that grabs on and holds on while it is swallowed by a massive sperm whale. Jay, relying on a lifetime of lessons he learned from his late father, must figure out how to escape the belly of this beast, and process his grief at the same time.
This was such an interesting read. After reading the blurb for this book, I was expecting a man vs nature type of action/thriller. What I got instead was a kind of psychological thriller that also took place inside of a whale’s stomach. It was really fun, up until the last 20% or so. After that I feel like it got kind of weird. I think that was the vibe that Kraus was going for, but I think he overshot the mark on this one. It was so disconnected from reality that I wasn’t really sure what was going on most of the time. It made it difficult to follow the storyline.
If you don’t like flashbacks, this book is not for you. It is absolutely riddled with flashback scenes. It can make it hard to follow along sometimes, but you get used to it after a few chapters. I thought that they were a bit excessive. That being said, after you got used to the writing style of this book, it was actually pretty interesting. It was almost like a stream of consciousness type of deal, but there was also enough structure that you didn’t get lost in the rambling. Things get more and more unhinged as the book goes on and it was kind of interesting to watch Jay get more and more desperate. I felt like I could feel his panic and it stressed me out while I was reading.
The writing was just incredible. Especially the descriptive language. I feel like I know exactly what the inside of a whale feels like. I know what a giant squid feels like. It was all so vivid and it made me miss the ocean. I could go on and on about how much I loved the descriptions in this book. I feel like some authors skimp on this a little, relying on the readers to fill in the details with their imaginations. I really appreciate an author that actually sets a scene and creates a character from scratch.
Overall, I give this book 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for Goodreads. The ending was just a little too weird for me, and I wasn’t expecting it to be so psychological.