Tuesday, May 28, 2024

DNF: Into the Deep by Ken Grimwood

 

Background: I read Replay by Ken Grimwood in 2018 and LOVED it.  Time travel with a twist is my thing.  So, then of course, I had to look up the author, and besides the fact that he died in 2003, he wrote other books!  Not so easy to find books... but I managed to get ahold of one of them, and then never read it.  Until now, as part of my 2024 reading ocean/boat related books goal.



The plot is basically something to do with a marine biologist studying dolphins, and the dolphins warning the world disaster is imminent.  OK, that sounds kind of interesting or different.  So I added it to my ocean book pile, and this month decided to try it out.  

Around page 80, I decided maybe this is not the book for me...  

The writing is fine.  Unfortunately-- one of the POV is a character who grew up speaking Portuguese  and uses many many phrases in the language, and they are not translated.  If I didn't know a little Spanish (which is similar) and could get the general gist of it, I would be missing key parts of the story.  

Second, there are chapters in the point-of-view of dolphins.  Yes, dolphins. And all the dolphins have names like Ch*tsk (yes written with the asterisk) and I found myself skipping entire portions of the book (is it over, nope asterisks everywhere, keep skipping) because who knew, dolphins talking to each other is not very interesting.  Supposedly, according to people who actually read the entire book there's a dolphin orgy somewhere in the novel too.  Um no thank you, I'll pass.  

Maybe I'm in the wrong mood.  Maybe I'll be in the mood for dolphin communication fun later.  Maybe I will learn Portuguese and not feel like I'm missing important sentences in the novel at a later date... Who knows.

I don't think I'll get rid of the book quite yet as it was not easy to get a hold of, but for now I'm marking this one as did-not-finish.  

If you would like to read a Ken Grimwood book, I'd recommend Replay.  Also, if you have read Into the Deep, and think I should finish it, let me know.  

Some books are just not for me.

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