Undertow by Michael Buckley

TL;DR American political problems but now with sea-people

TBR #1242, added Jun 15, 2015

finished 12/27/16

I've stared at Undertow every time I encounter it at Barnes and Noble and I was lucky enough that my library had an ebook version of it.

(My TL;DR isn't the best, I'm sorry ;;; )

It wasn't quite what I was expecting, though that's really my fault. I underestimated the potential for grittiness. It didn't hold back on the negative aspects of the concept or the progression and it was honestly a little uncanny -- if you take away the supernatural aspects, it could definitely be a parallel to the conflicts we're having (or have had) in the US.

The characters were nice enough but I didn't get very attached to any of them. This is definitely a plot-driven book (or at least, the progression of events is almost entirely out of the main characters' control). I do like that all the characters were given depth and different facets but I don't think the plot of the book gives much opportunity to explore those.

The plot itself was interesting. It was kind of a wild ride for me since my expectations almost completely missed the mark. Some of it was a little hard to believe for me, but I think that was mainly because I didn't have much history of the conflict to frame the current events. We get bits and pieces of what's happened as the story progresses but a lot of the details of it (specifically, the government's overall reaction when this started) weren't as clear as I would've liked. And I guess part of that is explainable in the context of the narrator: I'll admit I'm not the most keen with current events, so I can't expect Lyric to be, either.

The romance was kind of "eh", but that's probably something on my end. I don't feel like a romance was a good addition with this plot's aesthetic. I mean, it did add some stakes to the plot, but were they really neccessary stakes? I feel like they were high enough as it was.

The Alpha were interesting but it was a little hard for me to keep track of all the different types, especially since it's a written medium -- I suck at creating mental pictures. It might've been a little easier for me if there were only two or three sub-species (if that's the right term). Other than that I think the idea execution was good.

Honestly, this was a good read, but I don't know that I'll continue with the series? I wanted to give it a try, but I'm not all that gung-ho about continuing from where I left off, and I think that's mainly because of the aesthetic. Grim books like these always make me feel kind of depressed / jaded -- I like believing there's hope, but this world was set up almost too realistically (lol) in terms of possible outcomes. I don't feel like there's a good-end even though that's something I want to see with this series; every ending I can imagine feels kind of Pyrrhic.

TL;DR this was darker / grittier than I was expecting, and it was nice, but I'm not really sure I was the intended audience.