Those We Drown by Amy Goldsmith
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
During the Summer months I love reading campy-feeling, trope-filled Horror and Thriller stories. I call them Summer Screams, Summer Scares or Summer Chillers.
I’m sure you get what I mean by that type of story. It’s a vibe. A bonus is a setting near, in, or around a body of water.
With this in mind, you can probably guess my excitement level when I first hear about Those We Drown. All I needed to read was the first sentence of the synopsis, an ocean-drenched, atmospheric horror debut, and I was sold.
Unfortunately, no matter how much I wanted to love and connect with this story, it didn’t work for me at all.
In this one we follow Liv, who is setting out with her somewhat estranged-best friend, Will, for a semester-at-sea aboard a luxury cruise ship, the Eos.
Liv is in attendance after being awarded a scholarship. She didn’t think much about that at first, but once she arrives at the ship, it’s clear that the other students in the program are all very, very wealthy. Of particular note are a trio of stunning influencers. Basically, the Plastics of the sea.
Liv feels self-conscious now about her scholarship. She feels like she stands out because of it; like everyone knows her financial situation and is talking about it.
At least she has Will though. He doesn’t care about such things. That is until they have a big blowout fight in front of everyone opening night. How embarrassing!
The next day, after several attempts to reach Will, Liv finds out he has taken ill and is now in quarantine. She tries desperately to get the powers-that-be to let her see him, but she gets shot down at every try.
From there we follow Liv as she tries to figure out what has really happened to Will. Is he actually sick, or is something more sinister going on?
After reading 400-pages of Liv, perhaps he is just hiding from her? Something to think about…
I actually feel very similarly to this as I did to They’re Watching You earlier this year. I could almost cut and paste that review, but I won’t.
This started out slow and in my opinion, stayed that way. It never took off. It went from nothing happening, to the MC floundering around repeating the same concerns over and over for 300-pages.
As a main character, I found Liv to be, honestly, really annoying. Her whole character was one note, desperation, but not in a way that made you feel desperate too. More in a way that you just wanted to get away from her.
Additionally, I am an atmosphere-girlie. You could give me nothing else, but if a book has a dark, eerie, ominous atmosphere, I am going to like it. I don’t need to like characters, I don’t need to believe your plot, but I need to have a strong atmosphere.
Sadly, I did not get what I was looking for here in that regard. They could have been anywhere. I never felt that eerie sort of vibe I wanted. It just wasn’t there.
Overall, the story felt very repetitive and I didn’t enjoy the direction the plot went, as far as the reveals and the truth behind the Eos. It didn’t hit like I expected.
With all of this being said, this is 100% my personal opinion. I am by no means the end-all, know-all of YA Horror novels. If this synopsis sounds intriguing to you, absolutely give it a go. Just because I didn’t enjoy it, doesn’t mean you won’t.
There’s a Reader for every book and a book for every Reader. If you do read it and love it, feel free to stop back by and let me know. I would love to hear your opinion!
Even though this one didn’t quite fit my tastes, I am glad I picked it up and I would consider reading future work from this author.
Thank you to the publisher, Delacorte Press, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I know a lot of Readers will have fun with this.