“Whalefall” by Daniel Kraus - what an incredible story!

Daniel Kraus’ writing style is rich in picturesque aesthetic.
I was captivated by his ability to color the action and the surroundings in exquisite portraiture. I felt like I was right there with Jay Gardiner in his monumental self-imposed task of attempting to upright his upended existence.
The characters are beautifully and tragically painted in the flawed colors of reality, from the perspective of Jay Gardiner. It’s the story of Everyman, as seen through the eyes of one man. Jay has lived his life in the fishbowl of the Gardiner family, where each Gardiner see’s his life through his own personal experience, as most of us do, and he is battling his lifelong demons of ineptitude and frailty.
When Jay sets out on a mission to amend his failures, he uses his life’s experiences to make things right or die trying.
Whalefall is a poignantly beautiful tale of a young man’s journey from a debilitating existence of loathing for father and self to a place of realization that life is not a reflection of what we see on the glass surface sea, but rather, it’s a multidimensional ocean of turbulent shallows and tumultuous depths, splendid creatures and marvelous monsters, and learning to navigate the waters and relationships with the tools acquired along the way.

I recommend adding Whalefall to your TBR list. It was an extraordinary story with a powerful message.

This beautiful yet heart wrenching story is about a father/son relationship and dealing with loss. Jay, the son, and Mitt, the father, are complete opposites. Growing up, Jay resented Mitt that was always too hard on him and Jay felt he could never be the son Mitt wanted. The only thing they had in common was the love for the ocean. Jay can't take the emotional abuse anymore and leaves home despite his mother and sisters' pleas. During this time, Mitt receives a cancer diagnosis and commits suicide at sea. Jay decides to try to find his father's remains but ends up in the belly of a whale. While struggling to survive, Jay also tries to come to terms with the loss of his father. This was beautifully written and heartfelt. 5 Stars!

Thank you to Netgalley, Atria, and MTV Books in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, Daniel Kraus, and MTV Entertainment Studios for an ARC of this books I was so excited for this book, and it has been one of my most anticipated books for 2023. This just didn’t do it for me, and took me almost 2 weeks to finish. I think I incorrectly labeled this a horror book, and it isn’t. I didn’t feel the dread or unease I was hoping for, but that isn’t the books fault I made an incorrect assumption. I did like the alternating timelines, but I didn’t really care about Jay or Mitt or what happens between them. I wasn’t attached enough to either character. I ended up skimming the last 25% of the book. It was very well researched and I did get some fun takeaways about marine life that I didn’t know previously.

Whalefall Review! 🐳

Thank you so much Atria, MTV books, and Netgalley for this gifted e-read, in exchange for an honest review! Whalefall is out August 8, 2023!

I was so excited to give this read a try! Who doesn’t love a oceanic setting in the summer time (even if most of that unique setting was in the belly of the whale)?! Whalefall was a 4/5 ⭐️ read for me! Dang this was a cool read. There was a lot of emotion to it and suspense! While this was a unique read, it was also extremely slow at times for me and it was pretty heavy on diving info. So keep that in mind when you dive in!!

Having read Daniel Kraus’s Teddies trilogy and LOVED it, and the Shape of Water novelization as well as having children who are fans of Trollhunters, I was excited to find this latest work of his and unsure as of what to expect. This book is epic. Jay, the main character, is instantly likable and relatable as a skinny, nervous teenager seeking acceptance and placement in a world that seems to worship his father, Mitt, despite many shortcomings. Mitt is everything Jay is not: Brash, loud, confident, disdainful of the Human race in most regards, passionate and philosophical in all marine associated manners, a popular and seasoned diver more at home in the water than in his house with his family, and in possession on a anti social, short fuse temper that costs him innumerable vocations time after time. Through this all, he uses a certain amount of toxic masculinity to push his too delicate, too sensitive son to levels of utter misery in order to “make a man out of him” which backfires when Jay can no longer bare the brow beating abuse and runs away to couch surf in the homes of friends and refuses to return even when Mitt is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Despite nagging and pleas from his two elder sisters and mother, Jay is unwilling and unable to subject himself to more scrutiny when all he craves is love and acceptance from his father and declines to return home even after Mitt commits suicide by weighting himself down and dropping into the ocean, never to be seen again. Under the pressure of no form of closure, and a certain amount of guilt for never mending bridges, Jay decides to undertake a dangerous mission to dive alone, which as we all know, is NEVER a wise decision, into the vast depths of Monterey Bay in homes of bringing back his father’s bones and earning the forgiveness of his remaining family. What follows is a nonstop whirlwind of action, drama, forces of nature, and no small amount of horror when Jay encounters the legendary Architeuthis being hunted by an ancient and leviathan Sperm whale. In the most unlikely, but completely believably detailed turn of events, the squid latches onto Jay and drags him into the bodily hell of the whale’s maw where he is sucked and forced down into its stomach and trapped with limited light and air, seemingly lost for all time. This becomes a stunning exploration of self. How far will Jay go, how much will he struggle to return home? How much pain must he endure to escape the belly of the beast, and once, like Pinocchio, like Jonah, he is within the whale, is there a way out? He will have to search within himself for every ounce of strength he never knew he had, every scrap of seemingly pointless knowledge forced upon him by his father, to find out. (Speaking of which, I was both amused and momentarily irked by Jay’s finding the that knowing about the ampullae of Lorenzini, something being a shark fanatic, I have known about since early elementary school, to be a stupid fact. I guess in that regard, I’m more like Mitt.) I greatly enjoyed this novel and finished it within two days, reading avidly on iPad when at home and on my phone on the bus when between destinations, eager to , even desperate to discover Jay’s fate and whether he would be able to forgive his father or himself. The journey was a stunning one full of underwater wonders, clever twists, and tiny details that turned out to be vitally relevant. The book is remarkable and fully deserving of a Hollywood blockbuster that would be far more compelling than the drivel we often see in the box offices these days and I look forward to seeing what a director does with this wealth of character development and vivid, heartfelt, informative plot. Highly recommended. In fact, I would dare say, cathartic to those of us who still have no closure from a less than ideal childhood and relationship with our parents. Amazing work, full stars and beyond.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to review!
Rating (on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent)
Quality of writing: 3
Pace: 3
Plot development: 3
Characters: 3
Enjoyability: 2
Ease of Reading: 3

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

I like the way Daniel Kraus writes. It's easy to follow and brings you in. I did get really confused by the PSI chapter labels, because I didn't realize it was the amount of PSI left until drowning. Oops! I'm not familiar with diving, but it wasn't a real barrier.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the ARC.

Whalefall is an outstanding, heart-wrenching, and purely original adventure. I was fully absorbed and enjoyed (or was horrified by) every moment.

I have a lot of feelings about this book. First of all, the cover - WOW. I cannot remember seeing a more eye-catching cover this year. This is like an action movie combined with a heart-wrenching family drama. And yet somehow, it works. It was a quick, absorbing read and I believe it would be a FANTASTIC movie.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Whalefall is insanely good. So good it’s upsetting. Jay is lovable and infuriating, as are most of the characters, whale included. This is a book about survival on multiple level—physical, spiritual, emotional. It’s a story of transformation, birth. Not only is the plot amazing, the writing is phenomenal. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This story is amazing! It's a survival story Jay, a teenage boy who is swallowed by a whale while scuba diving. I am totally creeped out by the thought of dark open water and this book gave me all the chills. It is so chilling and claustrophobic! It is also incredibly heartbreaking. While Jay is struggling to find a way to survive and his oxygen is running out, he is reliving his traumatic memories and learning to forgive.

The only downside to this book is the writing style for me. It was a bit over the top at times, but I enjoyed the book overall.

I did.... not enjoy this book like I thought I would.

This is a story of a man who gets swallowed by a whale while also coming to terms with the relationship he had with his father.

Overall I was really excited to read this because the ocean frightens me, and I thought this book would really freak me out. Unfortunately, in most cases, it didn't hit the mark. In fact, the time when I felt most uncomfortable were the vivid descriptions of Jay's body being mangled.

I really couldn't find myself to care about Jay and Mitt's relationship. At first I enjoyed it, but it seemed like the book was trying to redeem his father and I just couldn't get behind that. His father was not a good man and you can't convince me that he was! His sisters were also terrible and almost not worth mentioning in this review.

I did appreciate the amount of research that went into this book. Another cool thing is the way the book was formatted. Current day chapters were titled with the amount of PSI that Jay had left. However, the past was labeled with just the year and that could sometimes get confusing when trying to create a timeline of events in my head. But that's just about the amount of praise that I can give it.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.reads.com/book/show/62919162-whalefall

First of all, the cover - incredible. Second of all, the concept - "Whalefall is a scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out." - fascinating. And it definitely delivered, I was gripped! What I didn't know was that this was also a story about the relationship between a boy and his father. I got a bit emotional several times while reading this. I also really enjoyed the Acknowledgments at the end and hearing how the author came up with the idea of writing this story. For me this was an all around fantastic read and I definitely recommend picking it up when it publishes on August 8, 2023.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Quite good. I don't find many scifi tales that are emotional but this was a little at times. A unique story, well told and engaging.

I really appreciate the free copy for review!!

Possibly one of the best books released this year. And this is coming from someone who isn't a big fan of JAWS or The Meg, and I haven't read Moby Dick.
Hard to put into words, but we can allow Kraus to do so himself.
This one is great.

This was a really weird book. Parts read like poetry with sentence fragments and stream of consciousness. I skimmed most of the last quarter because it was just more of the same conversations over and and over again. I liked it over all but thought it didn't live up to the hype of all the 5 star reviews that I was seeing.

What a wonderful, thrilling story. I could feel what the protagonist was going through, like I was right there along with him. First time reading this author, but definitely won't be the last.

“The whale is a fellow mammal; its gaze has a simian weight. By acknowledging Jay, it shares that it has a soul.”

“Man versus ocean. It’s not a fair fight. It never was.”

Summary: Jay Gardiner has put on his scuba gear and returned to the ocean with one goal: to find his father’s remains…the father who taught him all he knows about scuba, the ocean, and its inhabitants. His training is still good, and his determination is sound, until a sperm whale in the midst of a feeding enters his path.

Oh man. As soon as I saw this, I just had to have the ARC, and I am so appreciative that @netgalley and @atria approved me. As someone with a relatively intense fear/discomfort about the ocean and small spaces, I immediately fell into it.

The story is told as Jay slowly loses PSI as he attempts what seems like an impossible escape: a way out of the belly of a whale. The atmosphere is claustrophobic and as Jay’s PSI slowly drops, chapter by chapter, I got more and more tense. Then the present is peppered with scenes from his past, his upbringing, and the training his father gave him.

Kraus did a phenomenal job detailing the panic, the close quarters, the entire atmosphere. What could sound at the surface as ridiculous or comical (“man swallowed by whale, very Pinocchio”) is anything but; Kraus clearly did his research to keep even this tale as scientifically plausible as possible, and that work shows.

A definite contender for my favorite of 2023 even though it’s only May. I already feel the urge to dive (heh) into a re-read.

5/5

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book started out so strong, and then it just fell apart for me and felt like an acid trip (not that I know what that feels like). HA!

I have had mixed luck with “Read Now” options, and I probably would not have picked this one up if I had not noticed a comment in a Facebook reading group from a trusted recommendation source that she was reading it. That cover is almost irresistible. This book surprised me in so many ways. I had trouble putting this down. I loved the way the author wove factoids about sealife into the narrative. I found myself Googling images and information as I read - one of my favorite sorts of reading experiences. The “inner journey” aspect - the father/son relationship - gave the novel so much more depth (pun unintended), and what I thought would be a largely forgettable survival thriller ended up being one of my favorite books of the year so far. I also really appreciated the author’s note at the end. Thank you so much for this advanced copy - I’m so glad I read it!