Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

Let’s get this out of the way: I tried to love this. I did every mental gymnastic trick in the book to fall in love with Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. How could I not? It has everything that would normally attract me to a book. But, alas, Into the Drowning Deep was the biggest disappointment so far of 2023. Hello major reading slump!

So what went wrong? Oh, where do I begin?

Title: Into the Drowning Deep
Author: Mira Gran
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: 14 November 2017
TW/CW: Gore, death, violence, animal death, guns, biphobia
Synopsis: Seven years ago, the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend.

It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a tragedy; others have called it a hoax.

Now, a new crew has been assembled to investigate. And they’ll discover that whatever is down there is definitely no joke . . .

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I debated for a bit whether I should write a blog review for Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. I had already written a GR review for it. But I’m in the depths (lol, get it?) of the reading slump this damn book dropped me into and I’m sick of it. So I thought, “Why not talk about this book?”

I picked up this book before I read the Parasitology trilogy (see my review here) so I tried to go into this book with a fresh mind. After all, it has everything I could want: killer mermaids, science, and an isolated setting. Plus, new characters, new settings, and a new chance for Mira Grant to prove to me that she can write good horror/sci-fi. Instead, she dropped the ball like a hot potato. 

But let me not get ahead of myself and not be so mean.

What was good?

Ok, this is harder than I thought. But I guess I would have to say Grant’s mermaids were the sparkling diamond of Into the Drowning Deep. I enjoyed reading about the mermaids and found them interesting. I actually looked forward to learning more about the mermaids. But that was pretty much it. 

Honestly, I loved it when the mermaids appeared on the page. Found myself rooting for them. I think that’s a pretty good indication on how I felt about the rest of the characters. I actually got to a point in the book where I thought, “Please for the love of all that is holy, let this book end here with mermaids eating everyone and the rest of the pages are just artwork.”

Honestly? If this book was just simply about the mermaids and their anatomy/physiology, evolution, environment, and eating habits? I’d read that and enjoy it, hands down. But sadly, Into the Drowning Deep is not about them and they weren’t enough for me.

Now, what made Into the Drowning Deep such a bad experience?

The characters drove me nuts. Why?

Every single one of these characters ended up dull and wooden. I’ve seen white walls with more life and character than these characters in Into the Drowning Deep. I don’t need to feel connected to characters to like a book. What I need is for characters to feel like human beings, rather than letters on a page. 

Grant jumps around with the POVs as well. Multiple POVs aren’t necessarily a problem. In fact when done right, it can help a book to have multiple views of the same events. But it doesn’t work here because there got to a point where there were too many POVs. Two or three POVs is a good amount, but when you’re tossing in the mermaids, plus the hired killers, a random scientist, and an engineer? No thank you, that is far too many slices.

Pacing, pacing, pacing.

When you have a book with a page count that’s almost 500 pages? Pacing issues can show up. It happens! Although I’m not saying this was the worst thing about this book, the pacing issues exacerbate all the other problems I have with Into the Drowning Deep. 

Awful pacing leads to non-existent horror.

How can you have a book about man-eating mermaids set in the middle of the Pacific Ocean not be absolutely terrifying? Grant does it by having too many pauses to include portions of stream of consciousness from characters who shouldn’t even have POVs. Another thing she does that impacts pacing? She included filler scenes that were meant to expand on characters and flesh out the world.

Now, don’t get me wrong! Horror is about finding that balance between the scary parts and everything else. It can’t be all horror, right? But at the end of the day? Authors need to have that ability to be able to maintain that dread and terror even in moments where characters are bonding and you’re learning more as a reader. 

Grant never managed to maintain the dread. 

There was never a moment in this book that I felt the creeping terror I want to feel from a novel with this synopsis. Even when you have a character go down into the depths of Challenger Deep? Somehow, Grant never managed to suffocate me with fear and anxiety.

If you’re going to write a book with this setting and this plot? I expect some terror. What I don’t want is frustration and annoyance.

Final Word

It’s mind-blowing, really. Grant had everything. She had the high-quality ingredients: man-eating mermaids and a ship in the middle of the ocean being the primary listings. Yet somehow, Into the Drowning Deep is nothing more than a thin, tasteless broth. It is shallow with no substance. Even the “romance” seemed like nothing more than an afterthought tossed in to appease people.

With all that said, I’m going to give Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant a D on my grading system and 1.5 stars.

The only reason I’m giving this a D rather than an F is because the mermaids were interesting. Like I said, if it was just about the mermaids? I’d probably love it more, but the book was dragged down by everything else. Damn shame, really.

After this? I will not be picking up another Mira Grant novel. I’ve read four books by her at this point and I didn’t enjoy any of them. She knows how to bring science into her books in a way that makes sense for the world. But science isn’t enough to keep my interest.