A review by kalira
The Deep by Rivers Solomon

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

4.5

I found this book not only incredibly interesting (such an unusual and creative base, and yet also so immediately immersive) but lovely and also painful.

Yetu's pain with her life and her people is telegraphed clearly, and it drew me in to her hopelessness, anger, and eventual grasp at escape - and yet the story also twines the reader into how Yetu is so badly torn even
when she does escape the fate that has been killing her
.

As I read more and got even further wound up in the story - both Yetu's and of all the wajinru, I truly desperately wanted a happy ending, but also dreaded where the ending would actually take me.
I was, in the end, delighted with the perhaps-not-perfect but incredible resolution that managed to remove the torturous worst from Yetu as Historian . . . and to bring Oori with her, never to be left behind again.
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