Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Rolling in the Deep

I read the other book into the drowning deep first! Both are amazing. I love a book that says, what if this were real, what would it actually be like? How would people actually react? I find this book to be so accurate with how a mermaid would be a smart predator with all these adaptations and humans really would have that array of reactions. It’s so captivating. Id read more books by this author with this same topic for sure

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emilywemily6's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This horror novella was a solid story with an interesting premise, a sense of foreboding, and plenty of horrific details. It made me wanting more!

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ash_ton's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

SO much better than into the drowning deep. why couldn't that have been written like this???

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laurareads87's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

Rolling in the Deep follows a crew of scientists, camerapeople, sailors, and professional mermaids on an expedition to the Mariana Trench to film a 'documentary' about mermaids for a television network. Needless to say, the expedition does not go as planned.

What worked for me here: the concept is fun, the writing of the scariest scenes was well done, the slow build worked for me (some reviews criticize this but I prefer slower and suspenseful and thought it worked here), and the interspersing of statements from the network afterward were effective in giving the book itself the feel of a documentary. What didn't work for me: with this many characters and a page count this short, no characters stood out or felt multi-dimensional; I felt like the captain and first mate were most interesting but there just wasn't room in the story to let their relationship really unfold on the page. Even though I found this novella just okay, I do think I'll end up reading the novel that follows it in hopes that with a longer work, Grant can give the characters more depth.

Content warnings: blood, gore, violence, murder, injury detail, body horror, death

Content Warnings