Whalefall Whalefall

Whalefall

A Novel

    • 4.1 • 109 Ratings
    • $13.99

Publisher Description

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Named a Best Book of 2023 by Book Riot, Shelf Awareness, and NPR

The Martian meets 127 Hours in this “astoundingly great” (Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author) and scientifically accurate 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 by suicide the previous year.

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 tentacles 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 “powerfully humane” (Owen King, 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.

GENRE
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
RELEASED
2023
August 8
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
336
Pages
PUBLISHER
MTV Books
SELLER
Simon & Schuster Digital Sales LLC
SIZE
6.3
MB

Customer Reviews

HoldInTheSpam ,

Glaring Flaws

I changed my rating from 5 stars to 4 for one main reason: the relationship between Jay and his father. To me it felt like that subplot was just justification for emotional abuse. If I were writing this story, I wouldn’t have given the father any time of day and would have had Jay cut himself off from the rest of his family for enabling the father. The ending was also a bit too vague and abrupt for me.

Margrettwokids ,

Grieved with me

Got me through a family death

Robertshdbrb ,

Tears

It was a blessing to have stumbled upon this book the day it released. I had recently read The Martian by Andy Weir, and seeing this book connected to both The Martian and 127hrs in its description intrigued me.

It was so much more than I was prepared for.

I came for a fictional diving story, but I fell in love with the relationship between father and son weaving throughout it all.

As the story began to unravel, I cried. Maybe it was a fluke.

I cried again. I'm surprised.

I cried again. And again. And again.

It was so beautiful and cathartic, and although my idyllic relationship with my own father is far and away the antithesis of the character's, this story stirred up all of the best moments I've had with my dad, and brought me to ponder the painful loss that eventually will come.

To the author - Thank you so much. All of your work was worth it. This has become my new favorite book.

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