Book Review : The Diver

TL:DR;

WJ Davies’ book,The Diver, is a great story set in Hugh Howey’s Wooliverse. It is the sequel to the first Wooliverse short story, The Runner. I didn’t enjoy The Diver as much as I enjoyed its predecessor. The story picks up right at the beginning of The Runner, and shows the reader the events taking place in the Silo a different point of view. I didn’t care about the characters in this book as much as I cared about the characters in the previous book, and the atmosphere of the book did not feel nearly as dark and hopeless. Still, if you’ve read the The Runner, its definitely worth reading this book.

The Bad:

1. I feel like this book loses a bit of the atmosphere of hopelessness and depression the last book had. It just didn’t feel the same as the previous book.

The Good:

1. Some of the questions that are left unanswered in The Runner are answered in this book, and they are answered in a fantastic and engaging way.

2. The characters, while not as engaging as the previous good characters, are still very relatable and likable.

3. We get to see some of the inner workings of the IT department in this book and I always find the IT department in the Wooliverse to be an interesting machine.

4. There are one or two bait and switch moments in the book that I really enjoyed. I got worked up that things looked like they were going to play out a certain way, then BAM, they didn’t work out how I was lead to believe they would. I greatly enjoyed that.

The Meh:

1. I didn’t really care that much for the characters in the book. They weren’t flat by any means, but I didn’t empathize with them the way I did with the characters in the previous book.

Synopsis:

Ace is being sent to clean, but he isn’t the focus in this book.  In this book we follow Tommy, Ace’s apprentice diver. The flood doesn’t bother Tommy in the same way it bothers older people, he’s young enough that it’s always been part of his life. But things in the Silo are changing, and they are changing much faster than Tommy realizes. Deception, plans gone awry, a cleaning, and a Silo teetering on the edge of an uprising; will Tommy and all his friends make it to the end with their lives and the Silo intact?