ARC Review: THE GIRL WHO BROKE THE SEA by A. Connors

I received an ARC from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. It has not affected my opinions.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Age Range: YA
Star Rating: 4 stars
Series: standalone

Blurb:

Lily’s emotional problems run deep – three miles deep.

After she gets kicked out of school for her destructive behaviour, Lily agrees to an unusual fresh start: going with her mum to live at Deephaven, an experimental deep-sea mining rig and research station located at the bottom of the ocean.

Lily instantly regrets her decision: claustrophobic and isolated, it’s hardly her idea of home.

Turns out, Deephaven has problems of its own. The head scientist, they quickly learn, has disappeared – just as he was on the brink of a shocking discovery. In the darkness of the deep, something is stirring … something dangerous.

And it’s calling out to Lily.

Blurb taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.

---

Review:

THE GIRL WHO BROKE THE SEA is a great sci-fi thriller set deep below the surface of the sea.

There’s a tight, claustrophobia feel to the book. The mining rig is not large and the life inside it is precarious. Any breach in the walls is life threatening. Running out of oxygen is life threatening. Power going off is life threatening. It’s like an outer space book in that the outside world is deadly, but it is on Planet Earth, which makes it more unsettling because this planet is home.

It’s part way between a sci-fi and a thriller (and I am always so excited for more YA sci-fi!) You have the pacing and starting premise of a thriller, and the setting and action of a sci-fi, all bundled together into a thrilling package.

You can really tell when the science has been researched in a book, and this is one of them. Of course, there are some things that aren’t currently possible and species that haven’t been discovered, but everything is an extrapolation from current knowledge. As a STEM person myself, I love that in a book, and it really helps everything feel consistent and logical as the internal rules are strictly adhered to. Plus it helps it feel really grounded and realistic.

It’s also a tale about anger and not fitting in and trying to find a way to be the best version of yourself. Lily has all these jagged edges from so many things in life and the way that manifests is in a desire to break things (and let’s face it, we all have urges to break things from time to time.) I really enjoyed how, with acceptance of who she was, edges and all, she found a way to fit those pieces into her.

In all, this was a super fun debut to read and I look forward to more books from the author.