Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan || New Take on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Daughter of the Deep

New York Times #1 best-selling author Rick Riordan pays homage to Jules Verne in his exciting modern take on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Ana Dakkar is a freshman at Harding-Pencroft Academy, a five-year high school that graduates the best marine scientists, naval warriors, navigators, and underwater explorers in the world. Ana's parents died while on a scientific expedition two years ago, and the only family's she's got left is her older brother, Dev, also a student at HP. Ana's freshman year culminates with the class's weekend trial at sea, the details of which have been kept secret. She only hopes she has what it'll take to succeed. All her worries are blown out of the water when, on the bus ride to the ship, Ana and her schoolmates witness a terrible tragedy that will change the trajectory of their lives.

But wait, there's more. The professor accompanying them informs Ana that their rival school, Land Institute, and Harding-Pencroft have been fighting a cold war for a hundred and fifty years. Now that cold war has been turned up to a full broil, and the freshman are in danger of becoming fish food. In a race against deadly enemies, Ana will make amazing friends and astounding discoveries about her heritage as she puts her leadership skills to the test for the first time.

Content Tags:

Perfect for readers who want:

• A retelling of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
• Adventure filled with lots of nautical technology and references.
• An adorable support dog named Top!
• Dolphins! Very smart dolphins, too.
• A squad of diverse characters forced to work together.
• A high-stakes mystery that needs to be solved.

Many thanks to Disney-Hyperion and Rockstar Book Tours for an ARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This is actually my very first Rick Riordan book. Gosh, that feels so weird to say. I’m so very late to the party here that everyone else is already punch drunk and having a good time and I’m just standing in the corner all intimidated. When I saw that Riordan was coming out with a new book, though, not part of a previous series, I figured it was a good time to check out his work!

Daughter of the Deep is a retelling of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with a mystery that’ll trap you in its net and drag you along. Plus, a squad of diverse characters, lots of nautical goodness, and an adorable support dog named Top.

This book was a lot of fun. The school setup is extremely familiar and not particularly unique at this point, but it makes sense in this context, at least. I love how much diversity and multiculturalism Riordan is able to slip into his books and just make them a natural part of the scenery, without calling attention to, “Hey, look how different these people are!” They’re just . . . people. I had a great time trying to solve this mystery (and failing).

Meet the students of Harding-Pencroft (HP) Academy and become a member of the squad as they take on the biggest adventure of their young lives.

While this book starts out at a school setting, and despite all the protagonists basically being students, Riordan moves away from that pretty quickly as the action gets underway. At HP Academy, students are separated into four groups based on their personality and abilities (with the rare opportunity to be in two groups). For example, the main character, Ana, is a Dolphin, who are the communicators and codebreakers. There are also the Sharks (combat and weapons), Cephalopods (engineering and R&D), and Orcas (medicine and documentation).

This isn’t just any school, though. There’s a mystery behind Harding-Pencroft that goes back centuries that Ana and her cohort are just about to discover, whether they want to or not.

Like all squads, this group doesn’t always agree or get along, but they’ve been well trained and they’re doing their best to work together. They’re extraordinary for their age, which is to be expected, but there are definite moments of banter that sneak in, which I just loved!

While opinions on this are going to vary, I have to admit that I didn’t love the fact that the school was called HP Academy and the way students were specifically sorted into one of four groups based on their abilities.

Sure, the book opens with a joke about having heard all the Harry Potter jokes before, which is a nod to the fact that Riordan knows what he was doing, but for me that’s not enough. I just wasn’t a fan of this obvious nod to Harry Potter and the all-too-familiar school structure and had been hoping for something a bit more unique in that regard.

The characters in this book are wonderfully diverse in so many different ways, and Riordan manages to squeeze in multiculturalism without it feeling like a lecture on the subject.

When I say diverse, I mean diverse. There’s mentions of different religious beliefs. Students come from different countries and different backgrounds. The protagonist is actually Indian. One of the main squad, Ester, is autistic. This is a group of characters who aren’t all the same, and Riordan makes sure the reader knows it, in ways that naturally come up through the story, and I love it.

It’s not just the people, though. I absolutely love that Riordan represents other languages in this book. There are some dialog exchanges written entirely in other languages that has the gist briefly translated afterward, which I think has the potential to lose some young readers, but I don’t even care. I love the idea of exposing readers to other languages! There’s American Sign Language, Italian, Irish Gaelic, and Bundeli, to name a few. The only thing I really wish existed was a pronunciation guide, because I struggle with Gaelic pronunciation especially (and I’m sure I’m not alone), and I would’ve loved to be able to try to read those out loud. Even Italian pronunciation can be tricky to anyone who hasn’t heard it before (though I know the basics, so that wasn’t as much of a problem for me!).

Speaking of diversity . . . not all the important characters are even human! There are numerous animal sidekicks, from Top the adorable support dog to Socrates, the dolphin, and even a cooking orangutan!

It’s hard to resist one adorable animal sidekick, but three?! Impossible. Even though they’re not primary characters, they will all steal your hearts with their antics. Especially the Orangutan, who’s obsessed with The Great British Bake Off.

The animals don’t just exist in the background, either. They play sometimes pivotal roles in the story, or they’re part of the action. Which, if we’re honest, is really the best kind of animal sidekick, right?

Daughters of the Deep is a modern 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea retelling, so be prepared for plenty of adventure, nautical references, and lots of mystery!

This book would be great for anyone who loves anything about the ocean. It’s got ships, submarines, ocean animals, and lots of technical jargon that nautical fans will appreciate (but not so much that the rest of us can’t follow along). Daughter of the Deep is perfect for readers looking for a sea adventure, especially with some pretty impressive new tech and a centuries-old mystery to solve.

While you don’t need to have read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to read and understand this book, you’ll definitely get more out of it (including the references) if you have.

Unfortunately, it’s been so long since I read it that I actually don’t remember a whole lot about it. So some of the references went over my head, and there were bits that I felt I should have understood the significance of and just didn’t because I couldn’t recall their influence. It didn’t really dampen my enjoyment of the book, but I definitely feel like there were probably Easter eggs that I just completely missed because I’m not familiar with the original story.

The characters felt a bit flat to me. They were likeable enough, but without any real depth or substance.

Except Ester. Riordan does a fabulous job on Ester, the autistic character, which is fantastic. She’s easily my favorite and the one I found most relatable just because I felt like we got to know and understand her the best. The rest of the characters, including the protagonist, Ana, were just kind of . . . there. They existed and interacted with each other, and sometimes we learned some things about them, but they didn’t feel fully realized to me. A lot of them felt rather interchangeable.

I suspect this might just be a case of needing to create a whole class feel, so everyone gets some surface-level characterization but not necessarily deeper than that. I haven’t read other Rick Riordan books to be sure it’s not just the author’s style, but considering I have enough friends who extol the virtues of Percy Jackson to me on a regular basis, particularly which characters they love the most, I’m assuming that’s not generally the case with his work.

About Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan, dubbed “storyteller of the gods” by Publishers Weekly, is the author of five #1 New York Times best-selling middle grade series with millions of copies sold throughout the world: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus, and the Trials of Apollo, based on Greek and Roman mythology; the Kane Chronicles, based on Ancient Egyptian mythology; and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, based on Norse mythology. Rick collaborated with illustrator John Rocco on two #1 New York Times best-selling collections of Greek myths for the whole family: Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods and Percy Jackson’s Greek Heroes. Rick is also the publisher of an imprint at Disney-Hyperion, Rick Riordan Presents, dedicated to finding other authors of highly entertaining fiction based on world cultures and mythologies. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @camphalfblood.

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3 winners will win a finished copy of DAUGHTER OF THE DEEP, US Only.

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