Review – The Vicious Deep (The Vicious Deep, Book 1) by Zoraida Cordova (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Release Date: November 1, 2012
ISBN-13: 978-1402274411
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Vicious Deep series
Source: Swapped through Paperbackswap.com
Rating: 2/5 stars

“He was gone for three days. Sucked out to sea in a tidal wave and spit back ashore at Coney Island with no memory of what happened. Now his dreams are haunted by a terrifying silver mermaid with razor-sharp teeth.

His best friend Layla is convinced something is wrong. But how can he explain he can sense emotions like never before? How can he explain he’s the heir to a kingdom he never knew existed? That he’s suddenly a pawn in a battle as ancient as the gods?

Something happened to him in those three days. He was claimed by the sea…and now it wants him back.”

This is the first book in The Vicious Deep trilogy. I read this book out loud to my 10 year old son; we thought it was a middle grade book based on the description and cover. Let me be completely clear…this book is definitely intended for older YA readers; there is a lot of swearing, description of sex acts, and a ton of objectification of women. It was a poorly written book that lacked in engaging characters, story, and world-building.

The idea behind the book is interesting but the writing is poorly done. The dialogue is awkward sounding, there were a lot of typos throughout the book, and sentences were hard to read and didn’t flow well. Many times it was hard to tell which character was talking and things were generally hard to follow.

Not a ton actually happens in this book. The majority of the book is dedicated to our hero Tristan talking about how hot various women are and how bad he wants to see them with their clothes off. Then there is a lot of time spent on how beautiful all the mermaid people are and how bad the high school boys want to see the mermaid girls with their clothes off. There is a ton of high school level drama as well. I really wish there had been less of this and more of Tristan trying to win the competition to become the next sea king.

Overall there was nothing in this book I liked. The writing was awkward, hard to read, and hard to follow. The story was boring and more focused on people’s appearances than the adventure that could have been happening. I also would strongly recommend for only older YA readers; there is a lot of swearing and “sex” talk in here.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge
– Paranormal Reading Challenge
– YA Reading Challenge