The Undertide

The premise felt promising—coastal grief, a tide that returns bodies at the expense of memory—but the execution leans on familiar beats and leaves too many questions unanswered. The opening image of Evelyn driving back into Wrenfield is evocative, and Jonah’s ‘borrowed’ eyes are an effective small detail, yet those moments only highlight how predictable the larger arc becomes. The community ritual at the hollow in the rock reads like a catalogue of folklore clichés: anchors, tokens, a last-minute sacrificial demand (the living conduit) that feels telegraphed long before it lands. Pacing is another problem. The excerpt luxuriates in sensory detail—brine, gulls, the half-blue cottage—then rushes through important logistics. How exactly does the Undertide choose which memories are taken? Why do neighbors accept such a morally fraught ritual without more dissent or debate? Jonah’s composite nature is intriguing, but we barely get interior access to him; he’s described rather than lived-with, which blunts empathy. The carved basin token is a neat symbol, yet its meaning is hinted at rather than earned. Constructively: tighten the pacing by pruning some of the atmospheric description early and use those saved pages to clarify the supernatural rules and deepen Jonah’s point of view. Let the town argue—show the messy politics of grief instead of assuming quiet ceremonial buy-in. With clearer mechanics and more unpredictable moral choices, this concept could land much harder.

I cried reading the scene where Evelyn drives back into Wrenfield — the way the sea “came into view like an old fact she had tried to forget” is such a sharp, aching line. The Undertide is quietly devastating. Jonah’s smile that’s ‘real’ but with eyes that seem to borrow recognition is a small, brilliant detail that haunts the rest of the book. I loved how anchors (the carved token in Jonah’s palm, the memory-telling at the hollow in the rock) function as both literal objects and emotional currency. The community scenes felt lived-in and tender: neighbors who gather, offering pieces of themselves to hold Jonah in place, and the way grief becomes communal rather than solitary is handled with care. The ritual at the cliff is tense and beautiful — I was rooting for Evelyn even when the story forced her to face impossible choices. Atmospheric, lyrical, and heartbreakingly humane.

The Undertide impressed me more for its thematic discipline than for a twist-y plot. At its heart this is an exploration of memory as exchange: the supernatural tide gives back bodies at the cost of identity, and the town’s anchors are literal and metaphorical attempts to buy back continuity. I appreciated the structural symmetry — Evelyn’s road home mirrors Jonah’s half-return; scenes around the harbor recur, each time carrying a different emotional freight. Specific moments stand out: Jonah staring at the carved basin token as if surprised by its meaning, the children dancing around hidden treasures on the kelp-strewn rocks, and the community’s hollow-in-the-rock ritual that culminates in the demand for a living conduit. The prose is restrained but evocative, with sensory lines (brine, diesel, the wash of gulls) anchoring the uncanny. If you like fiction that poses ethical dilemmas through a supernatural premise rather than leaning on spectacle, this will satisfy.

Beautifully economical. I loved the small, precise details — the hardware store’s new paint, Jonah’s cottage half-remembering blue, the tiny basin token rimmed with crude notches — all of which do heavy lifting for the story’s mood. The concept (people returned by the tide at the cost of pieces of memory) is handled with restraint: the town’s collective rituals feel believable and strange at once. The final ritual’s price is chilling — the idea of a living conduit is a devastating moral pivot. Not flashy, but quietly unforgettable.

What struck me most was how communal the grief is in this book. Wrenfield isn’t just a setting; it’s a character made of shutters, old paint, and shared stories. The harbor scenes — gulls, brine, kelp where kids once hunted hidden treasures — consistently returned me to the same mood of remembering and forgetting. Jonah as a composite of others’ lives is heartbreaking: his borrowed recognition, the way he holds that blackened carved token and blinks into memory, felt unbearably real. The hollow in the rock gatherings are among the novel’s best sequences: the simple act of telling stories as anchoring felt both like faith and like ritualized therapy. When the town must face the final rite — the demand for a living conduit — the moral stakes land hard. The author manages to be spooky without melodrama; there’s real moral complexity here about what we owe to those we love and what we owe to the community. A slow, immersive read that lingers.

Loved the seaside mood, hated the way the supernatural rules felt like an accessory. The idea of a tide that returns people by stealing memories is solid, but the book leans way too hard on familiar coastal-ritual tropes — hollow rock gatherings, carved tokens, the one sacrificial conduit — as if folklore aesthetics alone can carry the emotional payoff. Jonah’s composite-ness is evocative at first, but the story never quite digs into the ethical implications in a new way; it mostly circles the same revelations until the climax. Also, the final ritual twist made me roll my eyes; felt a bit too tidy and dramatic for what had been a quieter, more nuanced setup. Beautiful sentences, predictable architecture. Cute vibe, not enough innovation. 😉

I wanted to like The Undertide more than I did. The opening imagery — Evelyn returning, the sea as an old fact, Jonah’s cottage leaning like a half-remembered house — is evocative, and there are flashes of real invention, but structural problems undercut the momentum. The premise raises interesting questions (how exactly does the tide choose who returns? What are the long-term consequences of mosaic memories?), but the narrative treats many of those as background texture rather than puzzles to be investigated. Jonah’s condition is sometimes moving and sometimes frustratingly vague: is he an amalgam with coherent emergent personality, or a patchwork that just happens to mimic recognition? The town’s decision-making about anchors and the logistics of the ritual felt underdeveloped — who enforces the rules? Why is a living conduit the only option? That lack of follow-through left the climax less satisfying than it should be. Still, the writing is strong in places and the community scenes ring true; I only wish the world-building had the same care.