Review: Drowning

Drowning by T.J. Newman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

From the book's publicity:

Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.

More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.

Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent—Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife—who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.

There’s not much time.

There’s even less air.

Have you ever seen The Poseidon Adventure (1972)? If you have, there is no need for you to read this book. The same characters are here, updated, and the same plot unfolds deep in the ocean. The dialogue is just as predictable (even derivative) and the ending is the same. 

I was so disappointed in this book. The reviews and promotions are outrageously good, so I quickly grabbed a Kindle copy for my "summer read." That read took less than one day. Now I need a new summer read. 

I never fell in love with the characters because they were not fully developed. But the writing disappointed me the most. I like complicated prose that makes me pause and re-read and appreciate the beauty of a phrase. None of that was here. The book is a straightforward narrative that requires no thought by the reader—which is why it is such a fast read. The repetition and cliches also accelerated my reading. I didn't need to finish the novel because I knew how it ended. I did finish it, though, because I was hoping against hope that something original would happen.

I will give Ms. Newman credit for her research, though. It must have required months of study to learn the physics of the ocean, aircraft, and ships. 

I am absolutely sure this book will become a movie. Ms. Newman's first book, Falling, will be. So bide your time for the movie when it streams. Perhaps they will title it Poseidon 2024.

View all my reviews

 _/\_/\_