Little Syllables: The Blog
Review - Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
I received a free review copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
It had been a while since I’d read a good science fiction survival story, so I was excited to get a review copy of Daniel Kraus’s new book Whalefall. This book is reminiscent of The Martian in that it’s about a man on his own in a fight for his life. But it’s so much more than that, too. It is also a look at a young man’s fraught relationship with his recently deceased father and the process of grieving.
Jay was raised on the water. His father Mitt taught him about the ocean and scuba diving. The two had a very rocky relationship, culminating with Jay leaving home to live with a friend in his teens. Now Mitt is gone, and Jay is grappling with the loss and his family’s feeling that he abandoned his father at the end of his life. So Jay sets out to redeem himself—by scuba diving in Monterey Bay to search for Mitt’s remains.
As Jay confronts the ocean, the dive, and the search for his father’s remains, his thoughts return to memories of times he had with his father.
But the already dangerous dive takes a turn when Jay gets caught up in a confrontation between a giant squid and a sperm whale. In the aftermath, Jay is caught in the squid tentacles and dragged into the whale’s mouth.
The rest of the story follows Jay as he tries to find a way out of the whale, all while he grapples with losing his father and comes to terms with their relationship. It’s raw and visceral (sometimes literally) as he does whatever he can to escape the whale before his air runs out.
I love how, even though this seems like a completely implausible situation, the author makes it feel very real. And while creating this narrative filled with rich detail about the ocean, scuba diving, and the sperm whale, Kraus also manages to create complex characters and intricate relationships within Jay’s family.
I highly recommend this book! I read it in two days, and I was engrossed from beginning to end. Whalefall is out now!
Review - Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Anthony Doerr’s new novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, is unlike anything I have read before. This book follows five different characters (Konstance, Zeno, Seymour, Omeir, and Anna), detailing their lives lived in different times and places, eventually weaving them together. Konstance is a girl living aboard a spaceship in the future. Zeno is a retired snowplow driver and amateur translator in Idaho. Seymour is a troubled teenager who wants to save the world. Omeir is a young man with facial deformities conscripted into war. Anna is a book lover stuck in a city under siege. They are all tied together by the story of Cloud Cuckoo Land.
This book takes the reader on an adventure around the globe (and beyond) while also showing the different forms of isolation each of the characters experiences. While reading this book, I felt immersed in each character’s unique situation, feeling their loneliness and despair along with them, but also feeling their hope. These characters are nothing if not resilient.
I loved this book. It blends genres of historical, contemporary, and science fiction. It is magical, epic, and extremely human. But it’s not perfect. In the end, I found myself wanting to know why. I think Doerr was intentional in leaving some questions unanswered. After all, those unanswered questions have left me thinking about this book long after finishing it. And ultimately, this book is about the power of literature to change the world—one person at a time.
Cloud Cuckoo Land is set for release on September 28, 2021.
