Review: The Abyss Surrounds Us

The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Pirates. Sea monsters. Giant laser pointers. Girls kissing.

I feel like that's sufficient to tell you why this is a 5 star review, but I'll elaborate.

So it's the future and there are pirates. What's a society to do? That's right - genetically engineer enormous sea monsters and teach them to follow wrist-mounted laser pointers aimed at pirate ships!
All is well and good until the pirates obtain a monster pup and force a young trainer to raise him to be ebil. Her life, the monster's, and a pretty pirate girl's all hang in the balance.

It sounds like I'm mocking it. I'm so not. I genuinely loved this.
It's got great action scenes out of a summer blockbuster and so much tension. No one is good or bad, and it's an amazing look into morality and how we justify our actions. The main character kills some people. And she feels good about it - it's a triumph for her and her monster - but she feels bad about feeling good.

I wasn't impressed with the ableist slurs thrown around in a few chapters, but at the same time, they're kids. Pirate kids. They're not going to stop and say "Maybe I'm using words that are offensive to mentally disabled people."

But all in all, an exciting book with some great female characters. Everyone needs to read this.

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