Rate this book

Los Abisales (2014)

by Kat Falls(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Ediciones Pàmies

series

Dark Life

review 1: I must admit, when I picked this book up, I was certain that it was going to be one of those logic-lacking YA dystopia novels that are very popular right now. (Or they were; I don't know, I don't keep up with trends...) So, when I started reading it, my expectations for this book were pretty low. Which might explain why I enjoyed this as much as I did. The basic story is that the continents are slowly crumbling into the ocean, and a group of scientists have come up with ways that people can actually live underwater. The main character, Ty, was the first kid born underwater, and has spent his entire life living on his family's farm, where they grow kelp and plankton (I believe). While exploring some specific part of the sea, Ty runs into Gemma on board a submarine, which is... more covered in blood. While the two of them are in there, the sub is taken by a bunch of underwater thugs, known as the Seablight Gang, but both leave the ship before anything happens to either of them. While Ty is attempting to inform the ranger about his encounter with the gang, he ends up at a "town" meeting where the ranger tells everybody living under the sea that all of their supplies will be cut off if the gang is not brought to justice. Everybody exclaims about how unfair that this is, as it's not like farming "topside"; without supplies, they will all have to give up their farms and return to dry land.After Ty returns home (under the water) with Gemma in tow, one of the other kids from a neighboring homestead comes rushing over and says that the Seablight Gang turned off the power for their home (somehow) and knocked out his pa. Not like everybody below didn't have enough reasons already to hate the gang, but things just got a hell of a lot personal. Gemma, meanwhile, is insistent that she go to the trade station "saloon" so that she can search for her older brother, who has been missing for several years. There, Gemma and Ty have an encounter with Shade, the leader of the Seablight gang. Ty recognizes him at once because of a weird encounter that they had when Ty went to his neighbor's house to help them after the gang attacked. Ty, trying to do the right thing, rushes to tell the ranger, who brushes off what Ty has to say, because Ty's only 15, and obviously, a stupid teenager who doesn't know diddly squat. When Ty and Gemma are attempting to return to Ty's home, the Seablight gang attacks their sub, but once again, they manage to escape. And it was at this point when I was sort of broken from the spell of this book. I'd been enjoying it pretty okay up until this point. For you see, something that Gemma kept going on and on and on about was something called a "Dark gift", or powers that children who grow up under the ocean develop. Ty kept insisting that the article that Gemma kept referencing was a bunch of baloney written by a fraud.But as soon as Gemma and Ty get out into the open ocean and have to literally swim back to Ty's home, BOOM! TY HAS MAGICAL DOLPHIN POWERS! Okay, so it's really more the power of being able to sense where things are in the water and he gets the general gist of what dolphins and whales are saying. Okay, you know, I'm willing to let some things slide. A magical underwater house with power and oxygen that humans can breathe? Sure, why not? The main character can fucking talk to dolphins? Well, I'm already believing the first thing, so why not?But the thing is, up until this exact moment when Ty and Gemma are on the sea floor, Ty has been all "deny, deny, deny" about the existence of dark gifts, and there wasn't even any hint that he actually had one to begin with. But after this point, it's pretty much non-stop Ty's magical powers, at every opportunity. But anyway, moving along, everybody else goes over to the house that got "deflated" to help the family there get back on their feet, and while they're over there, the "town" doctor tells Ty that the place where all of the gang members escaped from used to be an experimental underwater prison, and he used to work there. He then goes on to (tactlessly) say that the blood he found in the sub where Ty met Gemma belonged to Gemma's older brother, Robert. Since it was a lot of blood, sorry, he's dead. Gemma overhears this and gets rather upset (as you might imagine).Gemma and Ty later go to the Seablight prison, which is mostly flooded, but some parts still have breathable air. While they're looking around, Gemma finds a picture of herself taped near one of the bunks, and they figure out that it wasn't a prison, but rather, some sort of cross between a juvenile delinquent facility, an enforced work camp, and some sort of creepy science lab. And it was where Robert was shipped off to. They go back home, but then! Oh noes! The Seablight gang used the GPS on the sub they stole from Ty to find his home, and Shade, the leader of the Seablight gang tries to attack them. But then Ty's little sister, Zoe, uses her magical powers of electricity and knocks both Shade and Ty out.Okay, you know what, I might be willing to fly with the entire "I can talk to dolphins" thing, or maybe even Shade's power of being able to camouflage himself, because that's something that certain fish and octopi can do. But the electricity thing and the math genius thing that one of the other kids can do doesn't even make any sense. But moving on...Ty comes to at the trade station, and the ranger has got Shade locked up in a cell. Too bad that literally everybody around is an idiot, and he escapes and knocks the ranger out with the ranger's gun. (Well, the guy was a fuckwit, so he probably deserved it.) There's this overly long chase scene where all of the people who live below sea are trying to grab Shade, but then it turns out that Shade is actually Robert, Gemma's long-lost brother! Everybody tries to hang Robert, but Ty stops them, and Robert gets away. And then I think that there was something about how the doctor is actually crazy and was preforming experiments on all of the kids, and then they pushed him into the water without any air? But, like I said, it was really drawn out and I think that my eyes fogged over a bit by this point. As the gang is leaving, they shoot a harpoon at a window, and it cracks too much and some water starts to flood into the room. Ty summons dolphins and everybody uses them to escape, but then the doctor, who somehow managed to survive like 5 minutes under water without air (??????) attacks Gemma, and she almost dies. It's a real tragic scene when they get back to the surface and Gemma won't respond, not with CPR, or even when Zoe basically uses her powers to try and jump start Gemma's heart.But then, Gemma lives, and even though the gang got away, they promised not to bother the people underwater because THEY specifically are not the ones who experimented on them, and everybody lived happily ever after. The end. A fun, easy read with only just a couple of logic flaws. I think that if the book had excluded the Dark Gift bits, I probably would have liked it more. But it's still worth a read.
review 2: I think Dark Life is a good book because it talks about the life under the ocean and above the ocean. My favorite person in the book is probably Ty, because he is brave, helpful and dangerous. My favorite part of the book is when they are getting ready to go into the saloon. Dark Life is a very good book, so I would read it if I were you. I like this book because its funny, inspiring and dangerous. TB less

Download links for: Los abisales

Advertising