A "Sure-Fire" Tale that Fizzles Out Like a Match Tossed into the Ocean (review)

The basic plot has promise: young(ish) married couple goes on vacay on a remote Malaysian island, in hopes of repairing and rekindling their floundering relationship… only to find themselves kidnapped and carted off to the jungle by a band of pirates. Not inherently original, but surely the sort of action/psychological-terror vehicle to provide ample—and satisfactory—escapim, right? 

Unfortunately, not so much; despite having the makings for a suspenseful low-budget movie, the premise of Kirk Kjeldsen’s The Depths is far better than its execution. 

How does it all go so wrong, then? Believe it or not, even at a miniscule print length of 143 pages (listed as a “novel”, by the way, though to me it would be more-aptly described as a “novelette”)—the very definition of “tight” writing and editing(!!)—The Depths still feels a good (or bad, yeesh) 90 pages longer than it needs to be. (Yes, really.)

The problem, in all those excess pages, is that very little ever actually happens… and the space in between—where you’d expect to feel the psychological terror the couple is going through—becomes excrutiatingly repetitive, very quickly. If Kjeldsen had given them more to think about, so that we really learned about the characters (and could genuinely feel their plight), this could’ve been a compelling little read, but instead, they come across as thin, cardboard creations with little connection to the reader.

The only good thing is that I didn’t immediately figure out what was going on, so… I guess that’s something, right? (The biggest mystery to me is actualy the amount of professional praise this has received via the editorial reviews. I feel like there’s no way any of them could’ve read the same story I did..!)     

Bottom line: The Depths is woefully misnamed, because this one-note wonder has very little depth, at all.

~GlamKitty