The Vanishing Deep by Astrid ScholteMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Seventeen-year-old Tempe was born into a world of water. When the Great Waves destroyed her planet, its people had to learn to survive living on the water, but the ruins of the cities below still called. Tempe dives daily, scavenging the ruins of a bygone era, searching for anything of value to trade for Notes. It isn't food or clothing that she wants to buy, but her dead sister's life. For a price, the research facility on the island of Palindromena will revive the dearly departed for twenty-four hours before returning them to death. It isn't a heartfelt reunion that Tempe is after; she wants answers. Elysea died keeping a terrible secret, one that has ignited an unquenchable fury in Tempe: Her beloved sister was responsible for the death of their parents. Tempe wants to know why.
But once revived, Elysea has other plans. She doesn't want to spend her last day in a cold room accounting for a crime she insists she didn't commit. Elysea wants her freedom and one final glimpse at the life that was stolen from her. She persuades Tempe to break her out of the facility, and they embark on a dangerous journey to discover the truth about their parents' death and mend their broken bond. But they're pursued every step of the way by two Palindromena employees desperate to find them before Elysea's time is up--and before the secret behind the revival process and the true cost of restored life is revealed.
But once revived, Elysea has other plans. She doesn't want to spend her last day in a cold room accounting for a crime she insists she didn't commit. Elysea wants her freedom and one final glimpse at the life that was stolen from her. She persuades Tempe to break her out of the facility, and they embark on a dangerous journey to discover the truth about their parents' death and mend their broken bond. But they're pursued every step of the way by two Palindromena employees desperate to find them before Elysea's time is up--and before the secret behind the revival process and the true cost of restored life is revealed.
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The Vanishing Deep has to have some of the most impressive worldbuilding I've ever come across. And I LOVED this world--set in the future where 99% of the world is water, and the ocean itself becomes this dangerous, menacing character.
Tempest has been alone for the last two years, since her sister drowned. Three years before that, her parents both died too. But Tempest can get one of them back--Palendromena offers a revival programme, and Tempest's been diving for relics of the old world that she can sell to fund the revival of her sister. She knows that Elysea died with a huge secret relating to their parents' demise, and this is Tempest's goal in reviving her sister rather than sisterly love.
Well, at least, it is at first.
But Scholte throws us twist after twist, (and this review's going to contain spoilers), and soon Tempest realises that she should've revived Elysea for love to start with, not through anger, as she realises just how much she misses her sister--and how wrong about her sister she was.
And Elysea tells Tempest that their parents are still alive. I did NOT see that twist coming and I just couldn't read fast enough. This is where the action really starts going, when the two girls escape the revival centre and go on a crazy journey to find their family.
And of course they're being chased--it's a thrill-ride. Lor and Raylan are the chasers, and Lor is also the other narrator for this book (the first being Tempest). Lor is such a complex character. Right from the start, I knew he was guarding a big secret and could tell he was defensive--but when we learn the truth near the end, I was speechless. Lor is dead.
And I don't know how I didn't see that coming, because this book is all about life and death, about revival and resurrection. It's about loss and love,too. And the only negative I had about this book was how quickly Lor appears to fall for Tempest. He acts like he's almost instantly in love with her--right after she kidnaps him too. I just didn't really buy it.
But I loved the story. I loved the book. And I loved Tempest--she's cold and she's angry and she gets annoyed. She felt realistic. And this book's ending has some pretty profound things to say about life.
It's also a very feminist story. I actually did an analysis of this book just now for part of my MA degree work: It is very much the female characters who are in control of the narrative--while it's dual POV narration between Tempest (a seventeen-year-old female) and Lor, all of Lor's actions can be seen as reactions until the very end. He constantly reacts to the actions of Tempest, and so it is Tempest who is very much in control of the plot and the actions of other characters. And, at the end, when Lor does instigate his own actions (causing Tempest to be reactionary rather than active) his goal is to save the life of another character who is also female--and is the sister of Tempest, so Tempest, as the main character, is directly benefitting from the one time Lor exerts his own agency.
When you look at which characters are dead by the end of the novel, it's only some of the male characters too. Even the female characters who die during the plot are brought back to life at the end, because of the sacrifice of a male character.
When looking at it like this, it becomes clear that this is a very feminist novel (all the female characters also end up in high positions of power, if they didn't already start it), yet it wasn't until doing this analysis that I realised quite how feminist it is. Until then I'd just been enjoying it more as an entertaining YA novel!
In terms of post-colonialism, there is also a lot of discourse in this book on issues of power and economics in relation to culture. We've got different societies and cultures coming together and we see the clashes as well as the struggle the characters have as they try to decide whether to include the relics from all the cultures in their museums of the 'old world', or whether some should automatically take priority. In the end, it's decided that all cultures will be preserved in the museum, but special focus will be put on that of the previously colonised. The book ends with the colonised taking control once more, and being respected by the others.
There is also quite a bit of rhetoric on historical issues and social discourse between colonisers and the colonised--which directly linked to real-life cases, but had been subverted so it also applied to the fantasy world.
I also noticed a fair bit of characters who were 'othered' due to their appearances and origins; Tempest and Elysea were described as 'water witches' quite a bit, and interestingly, this term was only in relation to the female characters. (And, by the end, the main female characters of the book has claimed the name 'water witch' as a good thing, relating to female empowerment too).
View all my reviews
The Vanishing Deep has to have some of the most impressive worldbuilding I've ever come across. And I LOVED this world--set in the future where 99% of the world is water, and the ocean itself becomes this dangerous, menacing character.
Tempest has been alone for the last two years, since her sister drowned. Three years before that, her parents both died too. But Tempest can get one of them back--Palendromena offers a revival programme, and Tempest's been diving for relics of the old world that she can sell to fund the revival of her sister. She knows that Elysea died with a huge secret relating to their parents' demise, and this is Tempest's goal in reviving her sister rather than sisterly love.
Well, at least, it is at first.
But Scholte throws us twist after twist, (and this review's going to contain spoilers), and soon Tempest realises that she should've revived Elysea for love to start with, not through anger, as she realises just how much she misses her sister--and how wrong about her sister she was.
And Elysea tells Tempest that their parents are still alive. I did NOT see that twist coming and I just couldn't read fast enough. This is where the action really starts going, when the two girls escape the revival centre and go on a crazy journey to find their family.
And of course they're being chased--it's a thrill-ride. Lor and Raylan are the chasers, and Lor is also the other narrator for this book (the first being Tempest). Lor is such a complex character. Right from the start, I knew he was guarding a big secret and could tell he was defensive--but when we learn the truth near the end, I was speechless. Lor is dead.
And I don't know how I didn't see that coming, because this book is all about life and death, about revival and resurrection. It's about loss and love,too. And the only negative I had about this book was how quickly Lor appears to fall for Tempest. He acts like he's almost instantly in love with her--right after she kidnaps him too. I just didn't really buy it.
But I loved the story. I loved the book. And I loved Tempest--she's cold and she's angry and she gets annoyed. She felt realistic. And this book's ending has some pretty profound things to say about life.
It's also a very feminist story. I actually did an analysis of this book just now for part of my MA degree work: It is very much the female characters who are in control of the narrative--while it's dual POV narration between Tempest (a seventeen-year-old female) and Lor, all of Lor's actions can be seen as reactions until the very end. He constantly reacts to the actions of Tempest, and so it is Tempest who is very much in control of the plot and the actions of other characters. And, at the end, when Lor does instigate his own actions (causing Tempest to be reactionary rather than active) his goal is to save the life of another character who is also female--and is the sister of Tempest, so Tempest, as the main character, is directly benefitting from the one time Lor exerts his own agency.
When you look at which characters are dead by the end of the novel, it's only some of the male characters too. Even the female characters who die during the plot are brought back to life at the end, because of the sacrifice of a male character.
When looking at it like this, it becomes clear that this is a very feminist novel (all the female characters also end up in high positions of power, if they didn't already start it), yet it wasn't until doing this analysis that I realised quite how feminist it is. Until then I'd just been enjoying it more as an entertaining YA novel!
In terms of post-colonialism, there is also a lot of discourse in this book on issues of power and economics in relation to culture. We've got different societies and cultures coming together and we see the clashes as well as the struggle the characters have as they try to decide whether to include the relics from all the cultures in their museums of the 'old world', or whether some should automatically take priority. In the end, it's decided that all cultures will be preserved in the museum, but special focus will be put on that of the previously colonised. The book ends with the colonised taking control once more, and being respected by the others.
There is also quite a bit of rhetoric on historical issues and social discourse between colonisers and the colonised--which directly linked to real-life cases, but had been subverted so it also applied to the fantasy world.
I also noticed a fair bit of characters who were 'othered' due to their appearances and origins; Tempest and Elysea were described as 'water witches' quite a bit, and interestingly, this term was only in relation to the female characters. (And, by the end, the main female characters of the book has claimed the name 'water witch' as a good thing, relating to female empowerment too).
View all my reviews
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