Reading this book was like I was immersed in a film. The description, detail and titles of chapters all tied into the experience. Halfway through the book I had to come up for air and tell everyone around they need to buy this book! Great storyline, finished in one day! Look forward to reading more from Daniel Kraus! Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for a review copy.

This is a big horror title this spring, and while I can certainly see why - tense, suspenseful, claustrophobic, emotionally resonant - it just did not work for me and I'm having a hard time articulating why. It's certainly very well researched, it has short, propulsive chapters - why didn't I like it? I think for me it falls down on the character front. We get to know Jay's father quite well, but we really don't know much about Jay at all and it's hard to really root for somebody who feels like a bit of a cypher - and a teenage cypher at that. I'm comparing it in my head to The Luminous Dead, a body horror claustrophobic survival story that to me works like gangbusters in a way that this does not, and I think it's because of the character work.

Wow. What a book! This kept me on the edge up until the ending. I kept turning pages to find out what happened to Jay. I also really liked the shortness of the chapters as that also kept me reading. Suspenseful and claustrophobic, I would definitely recommend Kraus to everyone!

Whalefall byDaniel Kraus

This book surprised me in so many ways and all of them were loved. One look at the amazing cover and you think you know how the story is going to go, and that’s it. This story though is so much more than just the protagonist and his struggles with a whale.

Jay Gardiner is a senior in high school trying to finish the year so he can get to Berkeley where he has been accepted. Getting to Berkeley will get him away from the Monterey coastline where everyone seems to revere his father who has killed himself after disease has ravaged his body. Mitch Gardiner is a diving legend to people in the area and they blame Jay for abandoning him during his illness. To Jay though his father Mitch was the man he could never satisfy even though Mitch drank too much, couldn’t hold a decent job, and never had a nice thing to say to His son.

Jay’s mom and two sisters though don’t quite see it that way and it’s for them that Jay decides to make one last dive to find his father’s body. It’s on this dive, off the dangerous northern coast, that Jay encounters the Sperm Whale that will change his life and a lot of what he thought he knew about his father. I’ve seen this book compared to a couple of movies but the one where I see a similarity is Slumdog Millionaire. Like in that movie it is though flashbacks and memories that Jay will find the answers to questions he thought he already knew.

As a thriller Whalefall is filled with tension, ups and downs, and a character that has us rooting for him all the way. Now add in the father and son dynamic and you have a book that will hold any audiences attention. A must read this summer.

The claustrophobia! The gore! The body horror!

Whalefall follows Jay, a young man whose father has recently died by suicide, as he dives into Monterey Bay in search of his father's remains. Through a series of increasingly unfortunate events, he ends up being swallowed by a sperm whale and fighting for his life from inside the whale as he also confronts his grief over both his father's death and their poor relationship in life.

The atmosphere of this one is UNMATCHED. Whether describing diving through a kelp forest or the (supposedly mostly scientifically accurate) multiple stomachs of the whale, Kraus's descriptions are some of the most vivid I've read. You really feel for Jay and are simultaneously horrified by everything happening around him. Pretty much the only issue I had with this book is the way the story tries to redeem the father to some extent (and I have an absent/estranged father so I'm particularly sensitive to these narratives)-Mitt is emotionally abusive to his son in basically every interaction and the few "heartwarming" scenes thrown in at the end along with Jay's "maybe I didn't try hard enough to understand him" internal conversations rubbed me the wrong way. It's possible to deal with grief without entirely absolving a person who has consistently treated you very badly, even if they are family or a parent; at points it felt like the book kind of understood that but also felt like a traditional "child must show parent forgiveness" narrative. May just be my personal connection to that kind of conflict but other books I've read have handled it in a way I liked better than this one.

Other than that though, a quick and entirely absorbing read; Kraus's writing is wonderful. Recommended, but do be aware of the graphic body horror and claustrophobia present in the story.

I really enjoyed Whale Fall! It was such a different book for me but I loved the story and how it was told. I couldn’t put it down. Seeing the psi at the top of each page made me so anxious I found myself reading faster to see what happened next. I loved the flashbacks and how everything tied together. So many emotions in this book - uplifting, motivating, heartbreak, gruesome, sad, funny. Will definitely recommend this to others!

3.5
A scuba diver is swallowed by a sperm whale and has 1 hour of oxygen left in his tank! Will he make it out alive?

This is a very readable book with short chapters that rotate between how much PSIi Jay has remaining in his tank and the past which is titled in years. Jay is troubled by his fathers death and does this dive specifically for his dad. We slowly learn the back story of his somewhat turmoiled relationship with his father and the history we are told tends to relate to his current circumstances underwater.

There was a decent amount of science and biology involved in the book that made this whole situation believable. I applaud Kraus for his intense research to make it feel very real! I found myself looking up details, photos and videos online regarding whales and scuba and squid that enhanced my reading experience.

This will make for a great summer read keeping things intense and the reader has to keep turning the pages to see what happens next. Because it's a whole lot more than just being swallowed by a whale!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the advance e-book.

It took me only a short while to get into this book. I am not familiar with Kraus’ style of writing, which threw me off in the beginning. That said, once my brain fog cleared, I couldn’t have picked a better writing style. I felt like I was in the narrator’s mind, which really helped build upon the atmosphere of this survival story. I took my time with this book because I didn’t want it to end. It is exactly what I look for in every book I read, regardless of the genre. Powerful, sad, hopeful, and shocking, with a message to take with you. I wouldn’t consider this “horror” per se, but definitely horrific. It serves as a great reminder that sometimes it’s our perception of ourselves that harms our relationships with others.

In an attempt to find closure after his father’s drowning suicide, Jay goes on a solo dive to find his dad’s remains and soon encounters a giant squid. But he and the squid soon find themselves in the mouth of a sperm whale, and Kraus takes us on a terrifying ride that’s even more claustrophobic than horror film favorite THE DESCENT.

But this is no SyFy channel creature feature schlock: WHALEFALL is a page-turning thriller packed with science, grief, and Jay’s determination to prove himself to his late father, an unlikeable person who still managed to instill skills in Jay that guide him through his impossible dilemma.

Kraus brings the chills (and gross outs) full throttle as he steers his tale into a triumph of spiritual and physical self-discovery.

Few, if any novels released this year will grip the reader as intensely as this deep dive into the resolve of the human spirit.

Fast-paced, claustrophobic and engaging. A recommended purchase for most collections - this has cross-genre appeal.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of Whalefall. I've never been so honored to read a book ahead of publication. I ugly cried. I loved it. I'm here to hype.

Whalefall is a moving and visceral story of a boy being consumed by a sperm whale while searching the ocean for his late father's remains. I was on the edge of my seat for the action part of the story as much as I was for the backstory (father/son relationship). Literally, I could not put this down. I let food burn in the oven twice.

It's a story about what it means to be human, but also about our place in the larger natural world. It illuminates our effects on the environment in a way that wasn't doom and gloom (a rarity). It was inspiring without being religious. And it also disparaged the effects of toxic masculinity on relationships. It was all of this, baked into a thrilling, gory story recommended in my Books of Horror Facebook group.

I won't add quotes because I think they'll spoil the story, but some lines of this book will stay with me for a very long time. I loved Kraus' writing style, even when, at times, it verged on overwrought. I give it 5 strong stars. I think this book will appeal to anyone looking for a tearjerker, a horror, or anything in between.

This is a rollercoaster of hope, grief, love, hate, power,
weakness,loss, gain, isolation and freedom. It pulls you in from page one and takes you on an above and below water adventure that will have you absolutely needing to know what happens next. You will be invested in these characters and their relationships. You will be there from the first tear of pain to the last tear of relief. This should be on everyone's TBR.

Oh, and the MC gets swallowed by a huge sperm whale.
So, there's that, too.

4.5⭐️ rounded up to 5⭐️

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC ebook!

I had high hopes for this book. I felt like there was too much scuba and diving talk. The back and forth was confusing too. I only finished so i could find out what happened to the whale and if he got out alive. Could have been so much more!

I am so impressed with this book. I picked it up expecting a fun, creepy horror made all the more thrilling by the air tank time limit and the alien underwater world. But Whalefall is so much more than ‘just’ a scary story. There is a poetic quality to the narrative that raises the stakes to the almost spiritual.
The writing does a fantastic job of aligning me with Jay, the protagonist’s, mindset, especially in regards to his father Mitt. At the beginning I was fully onboard with hating Mitt alongside Jay, and I thought to myself that if this novel tried to shoehorn in some kind of reconciliation, it had better pull off something spectacular to justify it. Well… it did. Without excusing or explaining away Mitt’s failures as a father, the story nonetheless brings me to see him as a complex man deserving of some grace. Nor were the women of the family forgotten, as so often happens in stories of fathers and sons.
But even if you have no interest in cleverly written family dynamics, Whalefall is an excellent horror novel, carefully paced and managing to raise the stakes every time you think the situation is as dire as it can get. I finished the book in two sittings, and by the end I found that I was covered in sweat, as though merely reading the last chapters put me through some kind of physical exertion. The science of scuba diving and whale biology is neatly incorporated into the narrative for the reader to understand the gravity of the situation without ever feeling like an info-dump.
To read this book is to experience the sublime, in all its thrilling implications.

Wow. This book is cinematic, tense, and well worth a read. The concept drew me in but the character and his development led me through to the end. I really appreciated how he worked through his inner conflict along with his physical situation. The balance of survival story and processing grief was well done. I could definitely see this one adapted to a feature film.

I absolutely loved reading this book. I was completely drawn into the topic and could not stop reading it.

Whalefall has ruined my life (complimentary). The dynamic between Jay and his family, not just his dad but his sisters and mom, is fraught and tense, punctuating the present narrative where he is literally inside of a whale. I became attached to everyone involved here: Jay, Mitt, the whale, and Beaky, and had to set reasonable expectations about all of them (minus Mitt, who starts the book dead.)

I love how the “lousy dad” and “disappointing son” narrative was flexed here.

Whalefall was an incredible page turner, while also warranting several audible sounds of being grossed out—especially whenever Beaky was around. Highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys thrillers or who needs a reason to not go in the ocean.

This book, talk about a page turner, wow! It has insanely short chapters (which I love) and a plot and pacing that just begged me to read another insanely short chapter. Before I knew it, I had read every insanely short chapter.

The science in this book is so interesting, it made me want to fact check constantly. I know very little about the science of scuba diving or the science of whales and other sea life. So I found myself researching things that I was learning. Gotta love a book that entertains and teaches you something new.

The writing style within is so easy to read, despite some of the scientific terminology. This was yet another reason this was such a quick read.

Overall, this really tickled my inner sci-fi geek. The ocean is such a vast, unexplored place and this very much gave me vibes of The Martian or Project Hail Mary, with someone trapped or isolated and under extreme circumstances. Claustrophobic and breath-taking! Highly recommended!

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing an eArc. All opinions are my own.

Whalefall tells the story of a young man who, in the process of seeking closure after his father’s death, is swallowed by a whale. This book’s absurd premise and slightly slow start had me worried that I would not enjoy this. Thankfully, this ended up being one of my favorite books I have read this month. The story is surprisingly emotional; I felt for the main character as he recalled his complicated memories of his father, and I was fascinated with the elderly whale who had decided that it didn’t have anything to live for. As someone who loves the ocean, I love when it is used as the setting for more unique books. Overall, this was a great book that I will definitely be recommending and reading again.

I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this one, but first let me say that it was excellently researched and mostly realistic. Most of the story was really, really good, as well.

As to what didn’t work for me — all of the religious references. Despite saying he wasn’t a religious man, the last hour or so of the book is especially rife with references. In one section, it got so bad that I rolled my eyes.

The other thing I didn’t care for was how much of a d!ck his dad was to him, yet he saw a softer, more caring version of him while he was inside the whale. Yes, I know that everything he experienced took place inside his head. And maybe he needed to see a better side of his dad to forgive him. But the dichotomy between him rightfully disliking his dad versus the new way he came to see him kind of felt like he was self-gaslighting.

The fact that I still feel like this book deserves 4 stars is truly a testament to how riveting this story was. And despite what I’ve listed above, I still highly recommend reading it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.