A phenomenally fresh and thrilling account of a young man who’s dealing with the ghost of his father and the threat of a gigantic beast. Kraus’s style is breathtaking and captivating, propelling the story forward.

Maybe it’s because I’ve read T.J. Newman’s book Falling recently, but I think this book had very similar vibes! The plots are different, but the feelings are along the same lines. That claustrophobic, underwater fear in face of almost certain death. If that sounds like a book for you, I think you’ll love this!

It was so good to read a book where there was dad drama and not mom drama!! I feel like so many books I’ve picked up lately have to do with a hard relationship with their mother and I’m just not into that right now. I liked that this main character’s grief was over his father, who was most definitely not a saint. Everything with being trapped inside the whale was great, but I really enjoyed the deeper sides of this book where we got a good look at some hard parental relationships.

I will say this is one of those books where the main character keeps getting gruesomely injured but still surviving! Sometimes that gets a little hard to keep reading, at least for me. When your main character is on the brink of death for a lot of the book, that takes a bit of a toll on me.

But this is definitely a book I couldn’t put down! I finished the whole book over a weekend. Thank you NetGalley and Atria for the copy in exchange for my honest review.

The nitty-gritty: A heartbreakingly beautiful story with an unrelenting sense of danger, Whalefall surprised me in every possible way.

I knew I was going to love Whalefall, but I did not know it would end up being one of my favorite books of 2023 so far. Folks, this book is going to be hard to beat. Daniel Kraus has taken an outlandish set-up—a teenaged boy is swallowed by a sperm whale while looking for his dead father’s remains—and turned it into a thrilling and emotional tale of survival and self reflection. If this story interests you in the slightest, you absolutely must read Whalefall. It’s a brilliant piece of storytelling that should not be missed.

Jay Gardiner is seventeen when he decides to strap on his scuba diving equipment and look for his father’s remains. It’s been a year since Mitt Gardiner jumped off a fishing boat and drowned himself, and Jay’s remorse at the way he treated his dad at the end has finally caught up to him. Jay wants to do something good for his family, and bringing back Mitt’s skull might smooth things over with his mother and sisters. Monastery Beach in Monterey isn’t the safest place to dive, but Jay’s been training his whole life, since Mitt took it upon himself to teach his son everything he knows about the ocean.

Jay manages to sneak past the Coast Guard and make his dive, but with only about an hour and a half of air in his tank, he needs to find something, fast. And then, the unthinkable happens—Jay is swept into the mouth of a sperm whale. With a dwindling air supply, an unpredictable whale, and a host of unexpected injuries, Jay looks back at his unconventional life and the many lessons his father forced upon him. Mitt gave his son a wealth of knowledge about the sea and the creatures who live there, and now it’s up to Jay to dig deep and use that knowledge to find a way out of the belly of the whale.

There isn’t a single thing wrong with this book. The pacing is perfect, the writing is outstanding, and the suspense is off the charts. The chapters are very short, sometimes only a page or two, and alternate between Jay’s present—as he’s diving and then when he’s swallowed by the whale—and the past, jumping back to various points in his childhood, growing up under the stern tutelage of his father. You might think these flashbacks would slow down the pace, after all Jay is fighting for his life inside a whale. But surprisingly, the flashbacks only enhance the rest of the story, because the emotional elements are just as important as the frantic, nail-biting action. Kraus labels each chapter in the present with Jay’s current air supply, starting with a full tank (3000 PSI) and eventually dwindling to 0. Just seeing those numbers decrease was so stressful! There’s a palpable sense of danger throughout the story, and you won’t find out what happens to Jay until the last page.

The idea of being swallowed by a whale may sound like fantasy, but Kraus has done his homework. The story is loaded with scientific details about whale biology, from the size and color of the whale’s teeth to the spongy feel and terrible smell of the inside of its stomach. Readers who get queasy over detailed descriptions of blood and other bodily fluids take note: you will feel as if you too are inside the whale’s stomach, and it’s not a pleasant feeling! This was such a visceral reading experience, and Kraus backs everything up with lots of research (he notes all his sources at the end of the book). The ocean is full of both wonders and horrors, and Jay experiences both of those during his incredible journey. The author also goes into great detail about diving equipment, which might be too much for some readers, but I thought it added authenticity to the story. Jay has been absorbing everything his father taught him for years, so it makes sense that he’s a skilled diver and knows his equipment inside and out.

I love books that use every detail in the story. In other words, when the author mentions an object in the beginning (for example the mesh bag Jay brings to collect his father’s remains), that item plays an important part later in the story. There is literally nothing wasted in Whalefall. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Jay finds a squid beak inside the whale (look it up, it’s scary!) Jay names it “Beaky,” and it turns out to be extremely important to Jay’s survival. (Also, Beaky reminded me of Wilson, Tom Hanks’ volleyball in Cast Away—if you’ve seen the movie you know what I mean!)

But now we come to the crux of the story, the emotionally charged relationship between Jay and Mitt. I absolutely loved the way Kraus slowly builds the tension between the two. Mitt isn’t an easy father to love, and he expects Jay to be as enamored with the ocean as he is. Finally, when Jay turns fifteen, he can’t take it anymore, so he leaves home to crash with some friends. It’s about this time that Mitt gets his cancer diagnosis, and Jay refuses to talk to his dad, even when his mother and sisters beg him to. And then it’s too late, because he’s dead. Kraus perfectly captures the complex emotions between the two, as well as Jay’s remorse when he realizes he’s made a mistake. When Jay is swallowed by the sperm whale, he sees the whale as his father:

I loved the parallels the author draws between Mitt and the whale. In Jay’s damaged state (he’s badly injured when the whale swallows him), he hears a voice talking to him, telling him what to do to survive. Is the voice of the whale? Or his father? Or is he simply imagining it? Ultimately it doesn’t matter, because the voice is exactly what Jay needs to help him. 

Finally, the title of the book takes on new meaning near the end of the story, bringing everything full circle. If you loved The Martian, you'll find a similar vibe here as Jay has to use the resources at hand to find a way out. I’m not sure what else I can say to convince you to read this book, but if you want a reading experience unlike any other, I hope you’ll give this outstanding book a try.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

The premise of the book sounded super interesting and a bit terrifying. Unfortunately though, I struggled to connect with this story. I don't think that I've read a book quite like this one before. While I was expecting horror and terror behind every day, this book is more about a son coming to terms and understanding of the relationship that he has with his father. This is well told through a journey of survival, but just wasn't the book for me. I'm definitely in the minority on this one.
With all of that said, I do have a hardcover copy of this book for my bookshelf because I love the cover.

Couldn't put this one down! Whalefall is a father/son relationship drama combined with a seemingly well-researched scientific thriller.. My lungs hurt while reading the "inside the whale" story. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Whalefall was not what I was expecting. Sure, it was thrilling - a young man gets trapped in a sperm whale with only a small amount of oxygen! But this book dealt with some heavy topics and tackles the grief and guilt of a young man who has just lost his father.

Jay's father dies by suicide after his cancer treatments have stopped working. Throughout the book, we get glimpses into the past and the tumultuous relationship Jay and his father had. Mitch was famous amongst the SoCal diving scene, but his prickly personality made him hard to live with. Jay feels guilt because he never said good-bye and thinks he can make amends if he's' able to recover some part of his father's body. What he doesn't anticipate is behind swallowed by a sperm whale. From there, the race is on as Jay fights with his bare hands (and literal garbage floating around inside the whale with him) to free himself before his oxygen runs out.

The author created a suffocating, claustrophobic setting. It was really creepy. As someone who has always been intrigued and a little frightened of the deep sea I will say this did not help haha. The writing is descriptive, at times gory, and just beautiful. The author has a real flare for creating stunning prose and I just had a lovely time reading this one.

Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for a review copy.

I really wanted to love this book. However, the back in forth from Jays childhood to the present felt very choppy. It also seemed incredibly repetitive.
I thoroughly enjoyed the part of him being swallowed by the whale and everything in the present. I also appreciate the research that the author put into describing the anatomy of whales. I found this very interesting. I personally would have liked less of the flashbacks or something different in the flashbacks rather than just repeating the jays distaste for his father.

This isn’t just a story about a boy being swallowed by a whale. It’s so much more – Jay’s survival while processing grief and pain over the death of his father and a deeply complicated relationship between a father and son. It’s brilliantly constructed, and I was horrified to my very core at everything Jay experiences in the belly of the sperm whale.

Although an experienced diver, Jay hasn’t been in the water for a year. His father committed suicide, but his body was never recovered in the ocean. In an effort to deal with his grief, Jay makes a desperate attempt to find his father’s remains off the coast of Monastery Beach. The dive starts off well enough as Jay becomes accustomed to the water again – and then he’s swallowed by a sixty-ton sperm whale. He has one hour before his oxygen is depleted.

The Martian is listed as a comp title for this book, and there are many parallels. Jay’s only resources for survival are his knowledge, what he carries on him, and whatever he discovers in the whale’s four-chambered stomach. Most of the chapter headings list the amount of oxygen left in the tank, and the chapters are short, which makes this story move along quickly. I was so engrossed I could easily have read this book in one sitting – trust me, you won’t want to put it down – but had to split it into two. I learned a good deal about marine life (whales are fascinating!) and scuba diving (which requires extensive training) and appreciated all the research that went into this novel.

This is an intense story of Jay’s survival and coming of age, but also one of grief, regret, and complicated family dynamics that I highly recommend.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

It’s a beautiful day, you decide to go for a dive. And end up being swallowed by a sperm whale!!

This was a beautiful multi story book about Jay and how he grew up learning about the ocean from his father. How his father was diagnosed with cancer and decided to give his life to the ocean. Finally, Jay decides to deal with the loss of his father and dives where his father was last seen. While he was diving he gets swallowed by a sperm whale. I can only imagine trying to figure out a way out and your brain playing tricks on you from nitrogen narcosis. Part of me feels like maybe he never made it out and died in the stomach of that whale. And it was just a dream he was having from the nitrogen narcosis.

"Principles: a nifty excuse for being an asshole."

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" 'Your dad probably saved a lot of lives.'
Saved? Not ruined? It's the lesson of the funeral visitation all over. People did care. They saw the good in Mitt Gardiner. The same way Mom saw it, and Nan and Eva saw it. There's a chance, just maybe, that Jay has been the blinkered one."

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"Don't sons have responsibilities, too? The answer is yes, they do. To hold their fathers accountable."

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Jonah and the Whale meets Drowning gives us an intense struggle for life while facing your inner demons. Jay is a young adult who has major childhood trauma he hasn't dealt with but is forced to after his father's death. He has the half-cocked idea of recovering his father's body from the sea to help heal his wounds, so he sets out alone to do so. When he finds himself swallowed by a sperm whale he must remember all his father taught him and face their past together to try to survive.

This is marketed as sci-fi / fantasy, so let's not waste time on the plausibility discussion, I had his final escape solution as he was describing his equipment before the dive. What I think was done well was the introspection that happens during a life-threatening situation. The tension is high and yet we find ourselves in breaks from the action where Jay is reviewing his life, in particular, his relationship with his father. He is forced to see his father and himself almost as an external viewer, giving him perspective and the chance at healing. I don't often want an epilogue in a book, but I could have used one here.

This is one of the most unusual reads you will ever come across. I urge you to give it a try.

Thanks to Atria Books for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions above are my own.

Whalefall was an emotional punch full of dread and claustrophobia. The ocean is scary enough on its own, but add gargantuan creatures to the mix and you'll have me horrified.
The horror of this novel was great, but that wasn't even the best part. Our protagonists emotional journey dealing not only with the loss of his father, but the negative relationship they shared prior to his father's death was very compelling.
The combination of the characters and the setting made for a very great story that I can see fans of Jaws and Moby Dick really enjoying.

I will never forget the experience of reading this. I don't think I've been this emotionally moved by a tale of this nature since Frankenstein and that's saying something. Then, at the conclusion, it happened. The book hangover.

Whalefall is Jay Gardiner's story. Since his father's death by suicide, Jay has been wracked with guilt. Their relationship was complicated and they were estranged at the time that his Dad took his life. Jay has given himself the task of finding his father's remains, which he believes lay somewhere in the waters off the coast of Monastery Beach. Taught serious diving skills by his Dad, Jay feels he is prepared for whatever he encounters.

Entering the water is like separating from the rest of the world. In complete silence, Jay enters the dark, cold waters of the ocean's depths. In that environment, Jay's mind roams freely. The Reader is treated to many of his most personal memories, watching his complicated relationship with his family unfold.

In the midst of his quiet reflections, the unimaginable happens. First the giant squid, then the whale. Jay has been swallowed by an 80-foot sperm whale. He passes all the way into the whale's first of four stomachs. There he realizes that he is still alive, but may not be for long. With just an hour left on his oxygen tank, Jay needs to find a way to escape and fast.

This story felt so real and original. I love the choices Kraus made in telling Jay's story. The back and forth between Jay's present circumstance and his reflections on his past kept the story moving at a nice, steady clip.

I developed such compassion for Jay over the course of the story, but also compassion for this whale, who becomes such a beautiful character unto itself. When I mentioned Frankenstein earlier, it's particularly this connection I meant. The whale, who could be considered the monster, beast or baddie, of this story, was just a creature with a soul who incidentally had all of these circumstances thrust upon it.

As Jay fought for his life, while simultaneously grappling with his past, you could feel his will, his humanity, his feelings of hope and love, begin to grow, but would he be able to survive long enough to act on any of it?

This was an incredibly powerful read for me. I became so emotionally connected with the story. Not necessarily because I could relate to anything Jay was going through, but again, just because of the way that Kraus spun the tale. I think if you let yourself just sink into this one, let the story wash over you and really feel it, this could be an equally powerful read for you.

In addition to all of the emotion though, this is also fairly gruesome and I thought the descriptions of what was going on with Jay's body, and the whale's, was so well done. Kraus definitely gets top marks for his Horror imagery.

If you decide to pick this one up, which you should, be sure you read the Author's Note at the end, where Kraus discusses the level of detail he went into when researching for this book. It's quite impressive. We love a well-researched story.

Thank you so much to the publisher, MTV Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review. This is the first that I have read from this author, but it will not be the last!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria/MTV Books as well as the author for this ARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.
#NetGalley #Atria/MTVBooks #DanielKraus #WhaleFall
Title: WhaleFall
Author: Daniel Kraus
Publisher: Atria/MTV Books
Publication Date: August 8, 2023

Themes: Survival horror, Father and Sons, Grief, Family
Trigger Warnings: Drowning, father/son relationship, grief, suicide, depression, anxiety

WhaleFall is the the story of Jay Gardiner, who’s father has just committed suicide by drowning. So, naturally, he scuba dives in the general area to attempt to find his father’s remains. He’s hoping to assuage the guilt he feels due to the strained relationship that he had with his father. During the dive, he is swallowed by a whale and must escape before his oxygen runs out.
This was a quick read despite its average number of pages. The chapters are short and to the point. Unlike many of the reviews that I read, it took me a while to get into this one. I can’t say why exactly, maybe I found the pacing a little too abrupt. The story took awhile to emerge among the flashbacks. The transitions were not as smooth as I would have liked. However, once we got to the point, it really got going. I very much enjoyed the scientific information. It was presented in a smooth and palatable way. Very interesting. I LOVED hearing about the whale’s anatomy from the inside. This also helped this story to be incredibly immersive. I absolutely love being on the edge of my seat, which is why I love survival horror. The tension is delicious. It almost makes the slow start mean a little more. The anxiety started at zero and went to sixty in an agonizingly slow ascent, capped off by each chapter dealing with Jay’s fateful dive began with the PSI, a looming reminder of the time he has left.
This book gives off major Pinocchio vibes at first, but it was surprising how much I enjoyed it. I do wish the pacing was more smooth. I also wish there had been fewer flashback scenes. It did tend to break up the delicious tension. Despite that, I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who loves survival horror or someone who loves marine biology and diving. This is a great summer read. Clear your calendar so you can binge this one.

Such a good cover. Book was super claustrophobic. Honestly needs a trigger warning. So good, couldn’t help flying through this!

Absolutely loved the cover.

Jay goes on a search for his fathers remains, his father committed suicide after a terminal diagnosis by jumping into the ocean at famous for being challenging beach. He is swallowed by a whale. Broken into chapters by year at times and pressure reading remaining on his oxygen regulator at times—this worked well. Emotional- Jay while his selfishness is evident, also evident he is working through grief. Mentions covid and isolation so also feelings from that.

As oxygen becomes scarce writing matches and becomes confused thought process, talking to his father through the whale even. Very descriptive scenes of internal events. The writing is solid. Story just lost my interest along the way.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Children’s publishing for my electronic advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Believe the hype. Buy the book. Whalefall is that good.

Whalefall is a claustrophobic survival story of a diver who gets sucked into a sperm whales stomach. Terrifying thought. As if deep sea diving isn’t scary enough with sharp tooth predators hiding right in front of you, or the miles of dark ocean above you with pressure that can kill you if you don’t ascend properly, now there is the threat of being eaten by a whale the size of a dinosaur. This is why I stay out of the ocean.
While the story is about Jay’s struggle to survive inside the whale, it’s also a story about grief, regrets and a toxic family relationship. Jay is in the water to retrieve his father’s bones, a father who he hasn’t talked to in years. His voice is inside Jay’s head through the whole story. Sometimes it’s harsh, sometimes it’s loving, the whole time it’s helping him cope with his mental and physical situation. It’s very well written, and sort of levels off some of the intense moments.
You will walk away from this book with so much whale knowledge, it may fool you into thinking you are a Marine Biologist. Lol. Daniel Kraus did his research, and it shows.
You’re going to want to read this one. I promise it’s that good.

The Martian comparisons were spot-on but do this book a bit of injustice - the Martian feels somewhat distant, the terror here feels palpable, real. This is JAWS for the 21st century.

This book was really good. I do not want to spoil the read by going over what happens but dang. I did not think a book about a boy and a whale was going to go this way.

I'm totally crapping the heck out of this review but that's normal for me. Everyone go read this so we can discuss it!

I'm going to put in my diary a new reason to be scared of the ocean.

Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.

An interesting take on horror.

There's a saying in my culture - you run from a wolf, you jump onto a bear. In this case, this saying works perfectly,

In this story, Jay has been running away from his father and his emotional abuse for years. But now that he is dead, he is looking for a way to deal with the loss of his father, and unsolved issues of his childhood. He goes looking for his father's remains in the place where he died - deep diving in the the ocean. While on this mission, the weirdest thing happens - he gets swallowed up by a sperm whale. (I mean if you couldn't tell by the cover, that this is where the book is going..)

Yes, you have to take this with a grain of salt, and accept the fact that this is possible, but maybe not probable. But this creates a very interesting setting to deal with loss and grief, and abuse. And finally understand each other in the son and father relationship. This book hit more of the emotional buttons, as Jay flashes through his memories of his relationship with his father and accepts that sometimes you cannot change things and must accept the absurdly impossible situations - such as having an abusive father, and being stuck in a whale.

This was well written sci-fi/horror book, though it might not be for me. Maybe I'm just not ready to accept the failings of my father (which are aplenty), so connecting to Jay was harder for me. Maybe it's his age, and the fact that he has to process a lot of emotional issues in a short period of time. Maybe it's the ending and implied meaning behind the whale. I don't know.

Overall a very unique setting (I kept flashing back to old school Pinochio cartoon, where he was swallowed by a whale), a very intense emotional journey. But nothing that will stay with me.

TW: In parts very gory. Death of a whale.

It had been a while since I’d read a good science fiction survival story, so I was excited to get a review copy of Daniel Kraus’s new book Whalefall. This book is reminiscent of The Martian in that it’s about a man on his own in a fight for his life. But it’s so much more than that, too. It is also a look at a young man’s fraught relationship with his recently deceased father and the process of grieving.

Jay was raised on the water. His father Mitt taught him about the ocean and scuba diving. The two had a very rocky relationship, culminating with Jay leaving home to live with a friend in his teens. Now Mitt is gone, and Jay is grappling with the loss and his family’s feeling that he abandoned his father at the end of his life. So Jay sets out to redeem himself—by scuba diving in Monterey Bay to search for Mitt’s remains.

As Jay confronts the ocean, the dive, and the search for his father’s remains, his thoughts return to memories of times he had with his father.

But the already dangerous dive takes a turn when Jay gets caught up in a confrontation between a giant squid and a sperm whale. In the aftermath, Jay is caught in the squid tentacles and dragged into the whale’s mouth.

The rest of the story follows Jay as he tries to find a way out of the whale, all while he grapples with losing his father and comes to terms with their relationship. It’s raw and visceral (sometimes literally) as he does whatever he can to escape the whale before his air runs out.

I love how, even though this seems like a completely implausible situation, the author makes it feel very real. And while creating this narrative filled with rich detail about the ocean, scuba diving, and the sperm whale, Kraus also manages to create complex characters and intricate relationships within Jay’s family.

I highly recommend this book! I read it in two days, and I was engrossed from beginning to end.