Name: Whalefall
ISBN: 9781665918169

Daniel Kraus

The Martian meets 127 Hours in this “smart, surreal, and powerfully humane” (Owen King, New York Times bestselling author) 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. Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tenacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale. Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an “astoundingly great” (Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life…only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.

A Novel

Whalefall

A good description on why closure is so elusive

Katheryn

Jay's not sure he believes in therapy. He definitely doesn't believe in closure. People aren't doors. They're whole floor plans, entire labyrinths, and the harder you try to escape, the more lost inside them you become.

Principles: a nifty excuse for being an asshole

74 pages in and we're getting to the truly horrifying part of the story

Brick-red in actuality, midnight blue down here, Architeuthis is thirty-one feet lone from mantle fins to tentacle toes. Half a ton of gloppy flesh, floating in place, spreading like oil, its natural lights the glinting eclipses of a thousand moons. As it rotates, an eye rolls into view. The size of a soccer ball, it's the largest eyeball on Earth, a white disc of flame in the ocean black. 

Hewey called it "heiliger Schauer", the holy shiver of being caught in a predator's gaze. Said he saw it in dental patients from time to time. Jay like the phrase, a bratwurst mouthful; he and his buddies used it to reference bullies. Jay feels it now. He isn't shrimp, Architeuthis's food, and that's good. 

But that doesn't mean this thing likes him.

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

“But his companion, his savior, his good luck charm, his best friend, it‘s lost inside the whale, gone forever…Just because Beaky’s remains are lost doesn’t mean he didn’t earn Jay’s grief.” 

“Fact: sperm whales sleep less than any mammal on Earth. 

Jay, son of Mitt, son of whale, will follow suit.” 

absolutely tore through this mf and it had me crying in the end. this book is so well balanced, in its pacing and emotionality. oh my god i didn’t think i’d be feeling this much after this book. 

         My husband loves stories, and while he had previously enjoyed print books, once he discovered audiobooks, he started devouring them.  He had a decent commute to work, so there’s plenty of time for him to listen while he plods to and from work.  We got to meet this author at the Scarelastic Book Fair in Indiana, so Hubs made it a point to find one available as an audiobook from the library.  When he finished this one, he raved about it, so I was looking forward to it as well. 

            Obviously, I didn’t enjoy it as much as he did.  I’m not a big fan of back-and-forth timelines, sometimes it works for me, but most of the time I find that type of format frustrating.  This one was particularly annoying, and I’m not sure if it was because the “back” portion made the main character seem like a whiny brat.  While I understand Kraus was setting up the backstory between Jay and his father, I didn’t find that the use of the back-and-forth format played itself out well when I got to the end. I half expected Jay to actually find his father, and that might have helped me with the story, but the end was so unsatisfying, I just found everything else about the story to be lacking. 

            Again, my husband absolutely loved this book, and I have made it a point to vocalize that literary preferences are varied, so please don’t take my review and avoid the book because of it.  I didn’t particularly enjoy this one, but you might, so give it a shot. 

Kristen Claiborn

         My husband loves stories, and while he had previously enjoyed print books, once he discovered audiobooks, he started devouring them.  He had a decent commute to work, so there’s plenty of time for him to listen while he plods to and from work.  We got to meet this author at the Scarelastic Book Fair in Indiana, so Hubs made it a point to find one available as an audiobook from the library.  When he finished this one, he raved about it, so I was looking forward to it as well. 

            Obviously, I didn’t enjoy it as much as he did.  I’m not a big fan of back-and-forth timelines, sometimes it works for me, but most of the time I find that type of format frustrating.  This one was particularly annoying, and I’m not sure if it was because the “back” portion made the main character seem like a whiny brat.  While I understand Kraus was setting up the backstory between Jay and his father, I didn’t find that the use of the back-and-forth format played itself out well when I got to the end. I half expected Jay to actually find his father, and that might have helped me with the story, but the end was so unsatisfying, I just found everything else about the story to be lacking. 

            Again, my husband absolutely loved this book, and I have made it a point to vocalize that literary preferences are varied, so please don’t take my review and avoid the book because of it.  I didn’t particularly enjoy this one, but you might, so give it a shot. 

Patrick Book

This is astonishing and gory and beautiful!

It made me cry on this bus! 

I WEPT ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION BECAUSE OF THIS!

Yaffa

This is the most beautiful way possible to tell a story of a guy swallowed by a whale. The overarching theme of trauma, of a son's love-hate relationship with their father, and of differing perceptions of masculinity is very gracefully well woven into a harrowing and factually correct (well, mostly) thriller. Every line is like a poem, each is written powerfully and weaves seamlessly all the different narrative threads in the novel, all the way to the profound ending. It has elements of magical realism as the story unfolds, and it adds so much into the depth of characters.

It was a big gulp to swallow as you follow Jay through his grief in the stomach of a sperm whale. It was tough to listen to what a father should be versus what they are even at their best. 

There’s no doubt that the lows might always seem like the highs when you feel unloved. 

Overall! This book was pretty easy to engage with and I’m sure if you’ve got a more vivid imagination than me (or at least can see images in your head), you’ll be able to picture some really unique things being described. It is p major daddy issues and you should check content warnings! 

It was a big gulp to swallow as you follow Jay through his grief in the stomach of a sperm whale. It was tough to listen to what a father should be versus what they are even at their best. 

There’s no doubt that the lows might always seem like the highs when you feel unloved. 

Overall! This book was pretty easy to engage with and I’m sure if you’ve got a more vivid imagination than me (or at least can see images in your head), you’ll be able to picture some really unique things being described. It is p major daddy issues and you should check content warnings! 

Whalefall A Novel