Hello, everyone! It’s me, Isabelle Knight here again! So right now, I am doing a book review of Rick Riordan’s Daughter of the Deep, as you’ll probably know by the title of this post. Rick Riordan is one of my favorite authors. I’m a huge fan of the Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, and the Kane Chronicles series. So, I was so excited when his book Daughter of the Deep was available on Kindle Unlimited (by the way, I learned that books don’t stay on Kindle Unlimited forever. Some will be on there for a long but limited time which pretty much annoys me because now A Wrinkle in Time and The Hunger Games are no longer available).
Before we begin, I’d like you to know this is just my own opinion. If you enjoyed this book, then I am very happy for you and I really wish I’d enjoyed it as much as you. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started.
I had mixed feelings about this book throughout the beginning and middle. I don’t normally read those types of books (the ones with a lot of high-tech things and that are sort of like science fiction). I normally read middle grade fantasy with magic, crystals, sword and sorcery, and just lots of wonder in it. Honestly, the book was good for a book with lots of high-tech things. But I just had mixed feelings, and I was so confused about whether I liked it or not.
It has a lot of action and tension which intrigued me, but I didn’t really like the conflict and all that high-tech stuff. Daughter of the Deep is about a teenage girl named Ana Dakkar who is a freshman at Harding-Pencroft Academy which is a high school that graduates marine scientists, naval warriors, navigators, and all sorts of people who have something to do with marine exploration and stuff. One day, she and her class are on a field trip. During that field trip, the school is blown up by the academy’s rival school, Land Institute. There’s more but it’s a bit hard to explain. I’ll just say that there’s a lot of high-tech, a submarine that’s alive, and a betrayal. So, yes, there’s a lot of action and tension but I just didn’t really enjoy the plot that much.
For me, I feel like the characters could’ve been more relatable. One character betrays the others, but I feel like the reason could’ve been clearer and that it wasn’t an extremely good reason. I mean, I know that character was angry at the academy but… it just felt a tad bit unreasonable. Just a tad bit. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the ending. To me, it felt a bit anti-climactic.
There was one scene that I really liked. It was the scene where Ana and her classmates go aboard the Nautilus, which is a submarine created by Captain Nemo (and no, not the cartoon fish from the Pixar movie. Was it a Pixar movie?? I forgot). I really enjoyed it and it felt like it had a lot of heart, and it was very sweet.
Overall, I think this book is a good one, just not for me. I’m not even sure I’m the right audience since as I mentioned above, I usually read middle grade fantasy with lots of magic, sword and sorcery, and wonder. But if you enjoy Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and enjoy reading high-tech books that involve marine exploration and have a lot of action and tension, then I would recommend this book.
I think that wraps up this book review. Do you think it was too short? I’m not sure. I’ve never really done a book review before… Anyway, thanks for coming and I’ll see you again in the next post!
Isabelle
