yourspookymom's reviews
214 reviews

The Deep is breathtaking. By the end, I was genuinely sobbing. Rivers Solomon crafts a story that is both heartbreaking and beautiful, following Yetu, a historian who carries the unbearable weight of her community’s past. A community that are decedents of the Black women thrown from slave ships during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Through stunning, lyrical prose, the novel explores historical trauma, genocide, racism, love, and the struggle between remembering the past and surviving the present. The story and prose flowed beautifully. 

This story is grief and resilience, pain and healing, history and hope. The Deep explores what it means to carry the past and whether it is possible to let go without losing yourself. It’s truly a masterpiece. I highly recommend the audiobook as well, read by Daveed Diggs.

5/5

Fun! Gross!

This is just such a beautiful and bizarre story. I will carry this book in my heart forever!

Review to come!

Review to come!

Beautifully written and a wonderfully tragic novella around grief and mental health. This read mire like literary fiction than horror for me and was certainly written to make a statement on processing grief. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it. Reminded me a lot of Talk to Me, so if you loved that one, you’ll really love this. 

 Wowowowie! I really enjoyed this one! While I am just not a slow burn kind of gal, I did really enjoy how much it picked up in the second half, making the slower beginning worth it in the end. Gish’s prose is stunning and easy to stay engaged in the story because of it. Ohhh looooorddddd, I just fawn over the queer LONGING in this 😮‍💨 it’s delicious and written in such a way that you really FEEL how badly Ada’s desires eat her alive. The societal pressures and expectations from all around her becomes insurmountable and thrusts her into a wild deep dive into madness. How she handles the mounting stress in the last half kept me saying “yes bitch!!!!!!!!!” Ada, my stinky girl, I love you so!!!!! 

 

Outside of the pacing, I just didn’t find this to be a wildly unique story, but I did REALLY enjoy the execution. 

 

4.25 stars. Cheers to women being absolutely insane because we live in a world that constantly challenges our intelligence, our power, and our strength. This fired me UP. I can’t get enough of it. 

While this had a slew of incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking passages, a strong story, and a unique look at mental illness, it just wasn’t for me. It was much more of a sci-fi story and the time/story jumping was a little confusing. Overall an easy and worth it read if you enjoy this time period and sci-fi horror!

Review to come!