A review by hobbitsbooksandbeyond
The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie
4.0
Review written at 1am after a 6 hour reading binge so it might seem a bit all over the place sorry about that!
I am so torn about this book.
On the one hand it’s so well written, I love cas and her humour and I love the world building. The tension kept me on my toes and I read the whole thing in a single evening. It was a bit more violent than I expected but that wasn’t a big issue, and at first I loved the slow burn between cas and swift.
HOWEVER!! I spent over 200 pages just waiting for cas to get revenge for Durga, who, BY THE WAY, I fell totally in love with and whose death I was devastated by after only 24 pages.
Cas went from being a character who grieved and seethed for the death of her reckoner to being a character who by the end of the novel has killed three other people’s reckoners along with a bunch of people sent to rescue her. I had built my excitement up for cas and bao tearing the minnow apart and then riding off into the sunset with swift (until that revelation right at the end there) and then what does she do she joins the freaking crew! Properly! Of her own free will! She has one of the most powerful creatures in the ocean at her command and she doesn’t use that for revenge and it killed me. In a bad way.
And YET “I don’t just raise monsters. I am one.” I’m not going to lie if the Durga thing hadn’t happened I’d have been mostly fine with cas turning traitor for love etc etc but the way the novel is set up all I wanted was revenge, which is why I’m sort of “hmph” about it at this moment in time. Doesn’t stop me from giving the book a nice solid 4 stars though or from being interested in the sequel. I guess we’ll see where that takes us! For gods sake let there be some revenge!!!
I am so torn about this book.
On the one hand it’s so well written, I love cas and her humour and I love the world building. The tension kept me on my toes and I read the whole thing in a single evening. It was a bit more violent than I expected but that wasn’t a big issue, and at first I loved the slow burn between cas and swift.
HOWEVER!! I spent over 200 pages just waiting for cas to get revenge for Durga, who, BY THE WAY, I fell totally in love with and whose death I was devastated by after only 24 pages.
Cas went from being a character who grieved and seethed for the death of her reckoner to being a character who by the end of the novel has killed three other people’s reckoners along with a bunch of people sent to rescue her. I had built my excitement up for cas and bao tearing the minnow apart and then riding off into the sunset with swift (until that revelation right at the end there) and then what does she do she joins the freaking crew! Properly! Of her own free will! She has one of the most powerful creatures in the ocean at her command and she doesn’t use that for revenge and it killed me. In a bad way.
And YET “I don’t just raise monsters. I am one.” I’m not going to lie if the Durga thing hadn’t happened I’d have been mostly fine with cas turning traitor for love etc etc but the way the novel is set up all I wanted was revenge, which is why I’m sort of “hmph” about it at this moment in time. Doesn’t stop me from giving the book a nice solid 4 stars though or from being interested in the sequel. I guess we’ll see where that takes us! For gods sake let there be some revenge!!!