A review by aileen_macalister
Pod by Laline Paull

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

How would I describe this book to someone in one sentence?

Dolphin fanfic with an important underlying message and an overtone of sex and violence

SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT 

The writing itself is so good! And it's such an interesting subject to cover, how mankind's actions have affected the balance of nature, but it was so hard to get past the amount of times this book describes in detail dolphin sex

It's the circle of life and all that but it was so distracting from the message of the book. The themes of the book are interlaced

1. Eco-fiction/Climate change
2. Feminism

It was an interesting take and one I'll be mulling over for a long time I'm sure. About half way through it I stopped thinking about these dolphins as dolphins and more an ancient alien race, stop me before I fall into conspiracy 

The main character is "not like other girls" and when she leaves the safety of her pod because she has internalided her own flaws she is cap ured and then horribly abused on a number of occasions by other dolphins from another pod but she seems to just gloss over this fact. She becomes more comfortable and at home with her captures than she was at home which was very jarring.

All together a weird experience.

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