content warnings: slavery/the slave trade, attempted suicide, drowning, death, gore, violence, trauma, vomiting
representation: Black main and side characters, sapphic Black protagonist and main characters, f/f main relationship, non-binary Black side character

“‘What is belonging?’ we ask.
She says, ‘Where loneliness ends.’”

I've finally read a Rivers Solomon book! And it ruled! Rivers Solomon is an author I've had on my radar for a long time without realising, adding multiple books of theirs to various TBRs without knowing they all had the same author. I'm definitely going to be prioritising those other books after how wonderful this was.

The Deep is a novella about Yetu, the Historian for the wajinru. The wajinru are the descendants of pregnant women thrown from slave ships and because of their trauma they've evolved to forget their past. All except one: the Historian, who is given all the memories until it's time for another Historian to take over. Yetu is the current Historian but it all becomes too much for her so she flees.

This is a novella that is full of raw pain and longing and trauma. It was a good choice to make it as short as it is because I think if it were a full-length novel it would have become too much to read, but at around 160 pages it's the perfect length. Rivers Solomon's writing is gorgeous and they're able to switch perspectives incredibly well. I was able to tell what perspective we were in at all times even though there are no headers to indicate when the perspective had changed.

Honestly, this is a book that's really hard to talk about because it's so short and is so much about emotion over plot. The ending is absolute perfection and ties all the themes together expertly without making it too neat. I've heard the audiobook is great and want to try it out, but the physical reading experience is still great. It's a little slow at first but it pays off big time.