In an attempt to assuage the guilt Jay Gardiner was feeling for his relationship with his dad, Mitt, Jay embarks on a dive to retrieve his late father’s remains. His late dad committed suicide earlier in the year, launching himself overboard into the deep blue ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach.

While on the dive, Jay is confronted by a giant squid who Jay later determines to be a sperm whale’s latest meal. As Jay attempts to remove himself from the chaos, part of his gear gets caught in the squid’s tentacles. Struggling to get free was fruitless. In a flash, Jay is swallowed whole and finds himself in the belly of the whale beast with only less than an hour left of oxygen to escape his living hell.

Whalefall wasn’t what I was expecting. I struggled with the flashbacks to Jay’s past. But perhaps those flashbacks’ purpose was to provide some context into Jay’s history. And in the scheme of things, Jay was facing possible death, so his life was flashing before his eyes. However, to me, it didn’t do much for the novel except to muddle the eaten alive narrative.

I didn’t particularly like any of the characters. Somehow they all bore the same vanilla personality. It’s possible that the family conflicts overshadowed the character development, making all the characters one in the same. Or, I may have been more interested in the escape process, instead.

Overall, Whalefall was a decent read. But I would have loved it more had it not been for the family flashbacks. Three stars.

I received a DRC from Atria through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.