Gloria Lucas asked me to read and review her book How Deep the Ocean, and this book is truly not what I expected it to be. After reading the synopsis I knew that the story was about Mia, her grief, and trying to move past her husband’s suicide and move on with her life, but I truly didn’t know what the book was going to be about. 

Though the synopsis of the book reveals that Mia’s husband committed suicide roughly a year ago, the author does not make this incredibly clear right away in the book itself. Gloria alludes to it, but never quite hints that Austin committed suicide. Once we as the reader learn that things kind of start to fall into place more. The author paints Mia and Austin’s marriage as an unhappy one to say the least, and while reading the book a big part of me wondered if the reason Mia couldn’t handle her grief was because she knew she was ultimately going to leave Austin.  

This book does not only go through Mia’s present, but also her past as well, which I found a little bit confusing. It was not always clear when you were switching between her history and her present, and I wish the author had included the years things were happening in the chapter title, rather than at the start of the paragraph, so that you could go back quickly to see when everything was happening (especially as I was reading this digitally and could not just hold my place and flip back to look). I did really appreciate that the author took the time to weave in Mia’s history, however. It was interesting to learn who she was as a person, and who she has become. 

In Mia’s quest to get over her husband’s death, she starts dating a friend of a friend, Sean. The relationship with Sean starts off with a bang (pun intended) and the next morning Mia wakes up in his bed full of regrets because she feels like she cheated on her late husband. I really liked Sean when he was introduced into the book, but as the relationship between the two of them went on, it became more and more toxic, which I truly hated. It feels like the author only added this relationship to bring more drama into the book itself, and that Sean was not truly needed, especially when he didn’t really play into the healing journey of Mia at all. They broke up more than once, an ex of Sean texted Mia to tell her Sean was cheating, Mia and Sean admitted they loved each other very quickly, and then the relationship was over. If you remove all the parts with Sean in the story, the plot does not change, even a little bit, which makes me wonder what type of book we would have gotten if the author had not introduced a love story in a book that did not need it. 

I think the best part about this book was Mia’s relationship with her son, because this is the part of the novel that really had Mia’s grief, the “star” of the story, shine through. Mia is struggling. That is clear from page one. She is struggling, does not know what to do, and is drowning in her grief, regret, and loss. She is doing everything she possibly can to hold it together for her son, Isaiah. Isaiah, who knows something is wrong, even if he does not understand death. In my opinion, children are honestly selfish. And there is nothing wrong with that because most of them grow out of it. They spend the start of their lives being the center of attention for their parents and getting almost anything they want. They are given unconditional love and I think that that is incredible. But when Isaiah lost his father, and Mia felt incredibly guilty that he was growing up without a dad, Isaiah did not understand. But he did take advantage of the situation. You could see the struggle Mia had with Isaiah and wanting to discipline him, but not feeling like she could because of the loss. You could see their relationship build, decline, struggle, and ultimately succeed, and I think the author did a masterful job at making Isaiah just a kid that lost his dad. 

I do really enjoy that this book added Spanish into the story but did not translate it for the reader. Do i speak Spanish? Not even a little bit. Did I look up the words I did not know so I could understand? Absolutely! I liked that the character was bilingual, and the author did not feel the need to translate everything for us as the reader, because the bilingual people that I know wouldn’t translate their everyday conversations. It made the book feel a lot more real to me. 

In the end of the book, Mia ultimately decides to focus on herself and her own healing journey (which was strange to me considering this entire book was supposed to be about her healing), and I liked that she overcame her aversion to therapy as an adult and sought actual help. The issue I had was this came super late in the book, at a time where it already felt like the novel was dragging on, and I was struggling to continue reading. 

Overall – This was a good book, and I did enjoy reading it. But after about 84% of reading it, the book felt like it was starting to drag on and it became hard to read. I do love that Gloria looked at grief and mental illness so blatantly and did not shield the reader from everything. I do wish however that the relationship with Sean had ultimately been left out, because it did not change anything, nor did it ultimately add to the story.  

How Deep the Ocean – Gloria Lucas 
Cost* – eBook is $2.99, paperback is $12.00, hardback is 21.99.  This book is included with Kindle Unlimited  
*Cost is based upon what the book cost when book review is published