Review - "Down" by Ally Blue

[CactusSmasher]

In a word: disappointing. What begins as an intriguing undersea horror story is brought down by sluggish plotting, unmemorable characters, and a supposed life-changing romance, that, unfortunately, I didn't buy for a minute. Within the first 15 pages Mo and Armin are sleeping together, and every encounter after that the reader is bombarded with constant romantic platitudes and affectionate kisses, but I found no reason to invest myself in their relationship, seeing as how there seemed to be very little chemistry between them, other than the fact that the author wanted them to be together. The book doesn't stumble as much in regard to the horror aspect; the mystery surrounding the strange mutations are well-rendered, and for a while the book reads like a futuristic, deep-sea version of "The Thing," where crew members are not sure of who to trust, who is infected and who isn't. Unfortunately, the crew members are pretty one-dimensional and interchangeable, oftentimes I found myself at a loss as to who was who, and characters frequently make eye-rollingly stupid decisions. But the biggest misstep of all is that it simply isn't scary. There are occasional flashes of imaginative suspense, such as a scene where a character is accosted in an aquarium by a disturbing statue, but for the most part I found the overall atmosphere to be limp, a disappointment considering the ripe potential of the mysteries of the deep sea and the creatures within it. Ally Blue's prose is good, and even if it feels undeserved, the ending is bittersweet and appropriately ambiguous, but I simply didn't enjoy getting there. Not a terrible book, just a lot of wasted potential.