Fiction/Nonfiction Quick Reviews: The Ocean Edition

 The Swell by Allie Reynolds (2023)

Kenna lost her passion for surfing after her boyfriend's death, but when her best friend Mikki decides to get married in far-off Australia, Kenna travels to the remote beach where Mikki has been living.  There, she regains her love of surfing, but she is wary of the group Mikki has surrounded herself with.  People start to go missing and Kenna realizes she's in a very dangerous situation.  This one was a bit of a mixed bag for me.  I loved the setting - this very remote beach where a group of people seemingly hiding from the world have made their camp - and I thought the twist at the end was pretty shocking (I definitely didn't see it coming).  The path it took to get there was tough at times.  Kenna is very brash - much of the story was just her asking questions of the group members, trying to figure out what's going on.  It didn't seem likely that someone could come into this group as a stranger and start asking these tough, invasive, and sometimes intimate questions right off the bat.  She's worried about Mikki, but she's not subtle at all.  It just got very repetitive.  Overall, though, I enjoyed this thriller.  3.5 stars

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey (2011)

Giant 100-foot plus waves used to be the stuff of legends, until proof started emerging of these mammoth ocean phenomena.  In The Wave, Susan Casey takes us on her journey with tow surfers, including professional surfer Laird Hamilton, as they actively seek out waves that almost seem to defy physics.  Interspersed with these events are Casey's research and interviews with leading scientists about the ocean and what could potentially be causing these giant (and often rogue) waves.  It is startling to realize how much we still don't know about the ocean; scientists have ideas about what causes such waves, but they are still incredibly difficult to predict.  It's hard to even imagine what these massive waves look like, but Casey does an admirable job of helping create mental images through her writing (the photographs included in the book obviously also help, although seeing pictures and actually witnessing one, which Casey does, are very different).  The science doesn't get too bogged down and is understandable for people who don't have a strong background, and the sections about the extreme surfers are poignant and personal.  4 stars

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