Hey everyone! Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I got caught up with school and stuff. However, things have finally started to settle down so I should be able to start posting regularly again. Today I have a really exciting post for you all. I’m reviewing an ARC for the first time! Well, kind of. I’ve been apart of The Young Writers Initiative’s ARC Review Team for about a year and a half, but this is the first ARC that I’m reviewing that I’m reviewing on my own for my blog instead of for TYWI. (You should totally check out TYWI too though. They slay!) For those of you who don’t know, ARCs, or advanced reader copies, are copies of books that publishers and authors send out for free prior to the book officially being published in exchange for honest reviews.
Today, I will be sharing my thoughts on Dead Below Deck by Jan Gangsei. For starters, I would like to give a huge thank you to Jan Gangsei for sending me an ARC. I was super excited when she reached out to me because she previously wrote Zero Day, which is one of my all time favorite thrillers. If you haven’t already, I would totally recommend you check it out. Naturally, I was super excited to get the chance to read her new book, especially when I heard it was also a YA thriller.
Synopsis
Maggie was supposed to go on the vacation of her dreams on her deep-pocketed friend, Giselle’s, yacht. But the final night of the trip, Giselle goes missing. And the security cameras show Maggie pushing her over the edge of the boat. Maggie has no memory of the night, but she does have reasons for wanting Giselle dead. Granted, so do Giselle’s other two friends, Viv and Emi. Heck, even some of the crew members have motives. So what really went down that night? Did Maggie really resort to murder?
My Review
This book was a really fun read. It’s told in reverse chronological order, with each chapter starting closer to the beginning of their girls’ trip. For example, chapter 1 begins in the late morning of the last day of their trip and chapter 2 starts on the same day but early morning. That took a little getting used to, but ultimately was a really fun storytelling technique.
Jan Gangsei also utilized mixed media formatting in this book which was really cool. Alongside traditional narrative, there were sections written as diary entries, interviews, news transcripts, and text messages. This narrative device added a lot to the book and helped to maintain my interest in the story. It also made me feel like the book went by really fast since the main narrative was broken up these other elements.
This book was very fast-paced, which combined with its mixed media elements made it a pretty quick read. I really liked getting to learn more about Giselle and Maggie’s characters and friendship. As the book progresses you learn more and more about each of them and their motives. Their relationship was very complicated (as you can imagine as Maggie was recorded pushing Giselle off a boat) and they’re both very complex characters to begin with.
Something that I found really fun was one of the settings of this book was Key West, where my family went for vacation for my sister’s senior trip a few years ago. It was really fun reading about landmarks that I’d gotten to visit myself. That’s not super relevant as most people reading this probably haven’t been to the Florida Keys, but I will say that I think this book would be a great form of escapism for anyone. The main storyline follows Maggie while she joins her rich friends on a mini-cruise for Spring Break. They go to beaches and waste money on stupid things. What more could you want? (I mean, the whole girl-getting-pushed-off-the-yacht part probably isn’t ideal, but still. A vacation’s a vacation.)
I will say, I had a hard time connecting with the main character, Maggie. Since her backstory is only slowly revealed to us , I found it hard to relate to her and root for her as I just didn’t know that much about her. However, I ultimately think only giving us bite-sized pieces of her history at a time was the right choice. It definitely intrigued me and encouraged me to keep reading to find out what led up to the vacation and what really went down the night Giselle disappeared.
And that brings us to the ending. I loved the ending of this book. Obviously, I can’t give anything away, but just trust me. It’s totally worth it. It’s a super satisfying finale to a really fun read. I never saw the ending or the many twists coming and I was totally on the edge of my seat by the last page. Overall, I would give this book four stars. I had a really good time reading it. I would definitely recommend checking it out. It’s released on November 19th, but you can pre-order it now.
I hope you enjoyed this book and I inspired you to read Dead Below Deck when it comes out. I would like to give one last thank you to Jan Gangsei for sending me an ARC. It was a really fun read. As always, I hope this post finds you well and you have a great day!
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