Book Review: The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie
Pride month might be over, but it’s never too late for lesbian pirates and kaiju. However, don’t expect fluffy YA romance from The Abyss Surrounds Us. This is a post-apocalyptic YA sci-fi that follows a tradition of tackling darker topics. Where The Hunger Games looks at living under an oppressive regime and In the Dark Spaces addresses being the sole survivor of a massacre, The Abyss Surrounds Us tells a tale of emotional manipulation and abuse. It begins with climate change. The oceans have risen, the flood walls of New Orleans have fallen, and the governments of the world have split into smaller territories. Ostensibly, these splits were intended to make it easier to protect these smaller population clusters. However, some people always fall through the cracks, leading to a pirate problem in the NeoPacific. Cassandra Leung is a teenager from the Southern Republic of California. Her family is part of the world’s solution to the plague of pirates. They breed and train Reckoners: giant, genetically-engineered sea creatures created to protect their bonded ship. The Reckoners have proved a very useful solution thus far, albeit one that relies on a delicate ecological balance. The creation of Reckoners is carefully monitored so that enough food can be engineered to feed these monsters without disrupting the rest of the ocean’s ecology. In order to preserve both this ecological balance and the political power balance, Reckoner handlers are expected to protect the secrets of their industry with their life, if necessary.
