Omg…just finished in one sitting and having trouble finding the right verbiage to describe this amazingly beautiful haunting profound novel! The suspense, the pain, the anxiety of the main character is all DEEPLY felt by the reader…you are sucked into the vortex of words as the main character is sucked into the whale…..this book will now be in my top ten books of all time. This is on track to become a classic! Read it, devour it, love it-because you will!!!

Similar to Breath, it’s easy to hyperventilate while reading this book. Also similar that the story jumps around in time and in this case fades in and out of reality.
I’m not a fan of mushy, gushy feelings or the “struggles” of middle-class white males so I probably wasn’t the best audience for this book.
Overall though it was a short, enjoyable enough read.

⚠️Content: suicide, verbal and mental abuse, gruesome descriptions of bodily injuries and animal injuries and death.

🏳️‍⚧️Representation: middle-class, cis, straight white guys - one Jewish guy.

🎁Gift to: fans of The Martian, people who find Mary Roach’s books too science-y, scuba divers.

✍️ I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Whalefall promises and delivers a killer thriller of the likes of The Martian and Recursion. With an incredible sense of urgency, the reader is thrust into the most terrifying place: the dark mouth of a whale. Wholly original, this book is a fun, fast-paced palette cleanser for your summer. Don't skip this one!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Whalefall.

This was such a great premise, it made me think of Moby Dick or The Old Man and the Sea.

Jay Gardiner is an experienced diver who is intent on locating his father's remains. He committed suicide in the sea after his cancer diagnosis became terminal and his body was never found.

As Jay continues to search, he grapples with the intense guilt and sorrow over the death of his estranged father, he is accidentally swallowed by a sperm whale.

His only means of survival; the hard lessons culled by his unlikable father.

I didn't like this as much as I had hoped mostly because:

1. The writing style, the stream of consciousness format, and the short sentences was distracting.

2. I didn't like Jay's dad. He's not a nice guy.

3. All the facts about diving and whales was interesting, at first, but I soon got bored

4. Not a fan of flashbacks and there are a lot of them here

5. I didn't dislike Jay, but I felt I still never got to know him. Who is he? Why does he still dive?

I did appreciate the research the author did about whales. He contacted prominent nonfiction authors and experts in. marine biology to find out if being swallowed by a sperm whale was a probability. It is.

And then he left fiction take the lead.

A good premise but the writing style made it hard for me to stay focused on the narrative.

Whalefall

By Daniel Kraus

Release date: August 8, 2023

During a dive to search for his fathers remains from the Pacific Ocean, Jay Gardiner finds himself accidentally swallowed by a sperm while. Inside the belly of the whale with a dwindling oxygen tank, Jay has to figure out how to escape while facing the the ghosts of his past.

This may just be the most beautiful, heart wrenching, and hopeful horror novels I’ve ever read. It was not at all what I was expecting when I first picked it up. Yes, it has all the horror- it was terrifying, it was suspenseful, there was claustrophobia, there was gore. But it was also a mediation on a son’s difficult relationship with his father. The grief and guilt, the sadness, and the hope.

I can’t say enough about this book. It took me apart and put me back together. One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Daniel Kraus is a brilliant writer. This will be one for my shelf. I highly recommend it!

Thank you to Netgalley and MTV Books for the ARC.

This book. Oh my goodness - this book! I walked in expecting a tense, survival story and left with that and so very much more. Kraus has crafted a tale that is both bleak and hopeful, claustrophic and mind-opening. I read it in one sitting - I absolutely could not put it down!

Let's start at the surface - Whalefall is a survival story. It is intense and nerve-wracking. The chapters are short and counted down in PSI as Jay uses his oxygen. I am a diver and found this to be wildly clever as it's a metric you keep a constant eye on. You want to start planning your ascent to end your dive with around 500 PSI in your tank. It added an extra layer of stress to this already claustrophobic and tense novel.

Let's dig below the surface - Whalefall is a story of grief and a broken father-and-son relationship. It is heart-breaking and gutting. The chapters are short and counted in the years leading up to Jay's father, Mitt's, suicide. Jay is the youngest of the three children and the only boy. Mitt wanted a son to whom he could pass on all his knowledge and Jay wasn't sure that Mitt was the kind of guy that Jay wanted to become. As Jay is caught in the literal belly of a beast, he is forced to remember all of the diving, nature, and survival knowledge that his dad imparted on him and with that knowledge, all of the memories that came with gaining it.

This novel is as much about relationships as it is about survival and I can't recommend it highly enough. There's so much more that I would love to say about this book, but I don't want to drop any spoilers.

Whalefall
By Daniel Kraus
This book WOWED me in so many ways! It's a book about a relationship between a father and son that is totally mismatched. He thought his father hated him at times. His father also was "a drunk" and couldn't hold a job down. He had once been a great diver. The only thing that they have in common is the love of the ocean.
This book is also about a boy that wanted to dive in the ocean to recover even a single bone of his father's but it turned out to be a life and death struggle when he is accidentally swallowed by a whale. This is the crisis that helps the boy bring back more than just a bone of this father's, but his father's love.
All the details of being in a whale, the relationship, the hypoxia, all seemed so real. Good suspense too! Great characters and world building. This brought tears to my eyes several times.
I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this fantastic book!

Holy cow, this is one heck of a book! I've never read anything quite like it.

This is the story of a man who is swallowed by a whale while scuba diving and only has one hour's worth of air in his tank. I suspected this would be an intense read but I couldn't have imagined just exactly how much. I could barely put it down while reading and found myself gasping and exclaiming out loud in multiple spots.

The writing gets pretty graphic (aka disgusting) at times describing the situation Jay has found himself in. While this was tough to read at times, it added to the intensity of the story and made it believable.

The entire book takes place in less than two hours and is fast paced. And while the current story is taking place, we get flashes back to Jay's childhood and his relationship with his dad. This is also a book about suicide and grief.

I highly recommend this book for readers who want a thriller that is different from the typical stories out there. It's a story about the sea and about being human.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC of Whalefall by Daniel Kraus in exchange for an honest review. I was asked to wait to post this review until a month before this book’s release date.

Jay Gardiner is on a mission: find his dead father’s remains at the bottom of the ocean. Sure, therapy would be easier, but whatever works for you. While in the water, he encounters a giant squid that grabs on and holds on while it is swallowed by a massive sperm whale. Jay, relying on a lifetime of lessons he learned from his late father, must figure out how to escape the belly of this beast, and process his grief at the same time.

This was such an interesting read. After reading the blurb for this book, I was expecting a man vs nature type of action/thriller. What I got instead was a kind of psychological thriller that also took place inside of a whale’s stomach. It was really fun, up until the last 20% or so. After that I feel like it got kind of weird. I think that was the vibe that Kraus was going for, but I think he overshot the mark on this one. It was so disconnected from reality that I wasn’t really sure what was going on most of the time. It made it difficult to follow the storyline.

If you don’t like flashbacks, this book is not for you. It is absolutely riddled with flashback scenes. It can make it hard to follow along sometimes, but you get used to it after a few chapters. I thought that they were a bit excessive. That being said, after you got used to the writing style of this book, it was actually pretty interesting. It was almost like a stream of consciousness type of deal, but there was also enough structure that you didn’t get lost in the rambling. Things get more and more unhinged as the book goes on and it was kind of interesting to watch Jay get more and more desperate. I felt like I could feel his panic and it stressed me out while I was reading.

The writing was just incredible. Especially the descriptive language. I feel like I know exactly what the inside of a whale feels like. I know what a giant squid feels like. It was all so vivid and it made me miss the ocean. I could go on and on about how much I loved the descriptions in this book. I feel like some authors skimp on this a little, relying on the readers to fill in the details with their imaginations. I really appreciate an author that actually sets a scene and creates a character from scratch.

Overall, I give this book 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for Goodreads. The ending was just a little too weird for me, and I wasn’t expecting it to be so psychological.

I was not expecting this book. I was prepared for a survival story, sure, but not for the ocean deep exploration of a wounded and broken father/son relationship. It's visceral, both literally and figuratively. Exciting but also emotional. Told in short chapters and punchy paragraphs, alternating past and present, the complete picture is brilliant and unputdownable. Honestly, it's going to be a love it or hate it situation, but I obviously loved it. A harrowing, unique, and unlikely situation, made real with clear research and an emotional connection between humans, their fallibility, and the ocean. It's a must-read.

TW: suicide, parental abuse, blood & gore.

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

I’m mixed on this. The plot was amazing but it did go in a direction I wasn’t expecting. It’s not a bad thing but not necessarily my favorite either. Either way, it kept me on the edge of my seat!

Side note, I really disliked Jay’s family. People no longer know how to accept no for an answer or respect others boundaries.

*I received an ARC of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review with my honest opinion.*

Whalefall by Daniel Kraus is a suspenseful and gripping tale of a young man's fight for survival after being swallowed by a sperm whale. The story follows Jay Gardiner, who embarks on a dangerous dive to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean. However, things take a deadly turn when he is attacked by a giant squid and swallowed by a sperm whale. With only an hour of oxygen left, Jay must navigate his way through the whale's four stomachs and fight to stay alive.

Kraus's writing is vivid and cinematic, taking readers on an intense and immersive journey through the ocean and inside the belly of the whale. The author's attention to detail and scientific accuracy lend the story a sense of realism that makes it all the more terrifying. The characters are well-developed, and Jay's struggle with guilt and grief is palpable and relatable, making him a sympathetic protagonist.

Whalefall is a thrilling adventure that will keep readers on the edge of their seats from beginning to end. Kraus's expertly crafted suspense and well-rounded characters make for an engrossing read that is both heart-pounding and emotionally resonant. Fans of survival stories and oceanic adventures will not want to miss this astoundingly great novel.

“…don’t break my heart…”

Holy crap and oh my god. This book was heartbreaking and terrifying, so claustrophobic so real so frigging sad. I squealed and cringed and cried on nearly every page.

Jay has a difficult relationship with his father. He is the baby brother to two loving sisters and is close to his mother. But his father, Mitt, pushes him, tests him, rides him, berates him.

Mitt is a complicated man. An old sea dog, legendary for his bravery and knowledge as a diver, a drinker, a man’s man. Independent, tough, scarred and scrappy, Mitt struggles to provide for his family because he refuses comply, to fit in, to compromise. He subjects Jay to quizzes, test and challenges and laughs at his failures. After one particularly bad day, when Mitt again loses his job and gets drunk and violent with Jay, Jay runs away. For two years Jay couch surfs with friends and never speaks to his dad again.

Mitt gets cancer and dies without repairing his relationship with his son.

Jay goes on a last dive, a dangerous dive to prove something to himself, his mother and sisters and the memory of his father.

Jays dive becomes a life and death struggle as he gets entangled with a giant squid and is eaten by a sperm whale. Kraus uses science and terror to create an extreme experience for the reader, so realistic, so heart-pounding, so heart-wrenching, I will never forget this book.

The synopsis alone made me grab this book for my Netgalley shelf. Reading it was an emotional roller coaster of epic proportions. The teenage angst, the father/son relationship, the reality of growing up, the internal dialogue, the slightly fantastical edge, the writing style, the character development, the ambiguous ending. All of it made for a stellar read. However, this book is not for everyone, you have to be an open minded reader to realize the genius of this book and you have to read it slow. I usually want books that give 5 stars to made into a movie, but not his one, I can't think of one screenwriter (including Kraus) that could put this on the big screen and still evoke the kind of emotion the book does.

WOW I cannot say enough good things about this book. I read this in one sitting - I could not put it down.

We follow Jay, a teenager who dives to attempt to find his father's remains after his suicide by drowning off the coast of Monastery Beach. Jay dives, and encounters a giant squid, and then worst, a sperm whale looking to feed on that squid. Jay is swallowed by the whale, and only has an hour to escape.

My heart was pounding while reading this. It is absolutely terrifying and claustrophobic, but also extremely emotional, as Jay grapples with not only his need to escape, but his grief and difficult history with his father. This novel really was beautiful - I couldn't stop rooting for Jay while simultaneously, growing a real attachment to his whale. This was my first Kraus, and I was just absolutely blown away. I will be thinking about this one for a very long time.