Daughter of the Deep. Rick Riordan. 2021. 354 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: Here's the thing about life-shattering days. They start just like any other. You don't realize your world is about to explode into a million smoking pieces of awfulness until it's too late.
Premise/plot: Daughter of the Deep is Rick Riordan's newest book. It is a premise-driven what if novel. What if Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was more nonfiction than fiction, more true than false. What if his legacy was passed down through his descendants? His DNA--their DNA--holding keys to great staggering technological wonders and achievements. Ana Dakkar, our heroine, is Captain Nemo's descendant...and the fate of the world may depend on her survival and her ability to connect (and ultimately command) with the Nautilus.
Harding-Pencroft Academy is at war with the Land Institute. Ana--and most of the characters of the book--are students and faculty of Harding-Pencroft Academy. But the setting is not on land, but on sea, the deep sea. Ana--and most of the characters--are freshmen at the academy.
My thoughts: If an intriguing premise is ALL you need from a book, then this may prove quite entertaining. I will give it to Riordan that the premise--on paper--sounds fantastic. A premise with great potential for action, adventure, character growth, world building, etc. All the best action-adventure books have strong friendships at their core.
But. Does Daughter of the Deep deliver more than an interesting/intriguing premise? My opinion is NO. I think the book spends so much time on the premise and world building, that very little--if any--time is spent on developing RELATIONSHIPS or even characterization. I haven't decided if a) the characters are meant to be developed but just come across as boring or bland or indistinguishable or b) he was so busy writing descriptions and plotting action/battle scenes that he forgot that characters matter. The truth is if a reader fails to care about the characters, then it doesn't matter how many battle scenes there are: the book will be BORING and lifeless. More time and attention is spent on describing the Nautilus than there is developing characters like Ana.
So if I feel this strongly about the book, why did I keep reading???? Well, at first I thought it was just setting up the world and that if I could get past the first chunk of info-dumping, then it would "get good." Sure, the start might be slow, but somewhere along the way it would all click into place and then BOOM it would be worth it. All the world-building will have been time well spent, the big picture will be seen, and it will be satisfying. About hundred pages left to go, and I was like...I don't think this book is going to get better. I don't think it will prove ultimately satisfying. Then it was just stubbornness pure and simple. I'm not going to get that close to the end only to give up on a book.
It didn't help that 98% of all reviews on Goodreads are WOW, I CAN'T BELIEVE WE HAVE A COVER NOW. I CAN'T WAIT TO READ THIS.
© 2021 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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