I think this is a 4-star read for me. I don’t want my review to include spoilers though, and I did have two major issues with the story that I wanted to discuss.

Firstly, I couldn’t understand why they all kept going at this specific time.

On a very general level, it was emphasized that fewer than 150 people had ever survived the Sixth Layer, so why did 3 mediocre teenage divers feel confident enough to try it when 2/3 of them were in bad shape? Their likelihood of death was near 100% and they all knew it. This was how Petra’s dad and Flint’s brother died after all, and they were well-rested and well-nourished beforehand.

For Jade: 1) Why hadn’t she pushed for this dive much sooner, so that she wouldn’t be so weak and desperate? She could have convinced Petra to do this months earlier by forcing the same situation. 2) Why did she sabotage Flint before getting to where she needed to go? She could have kept Flint as an ally until they reached the Sixth Layer and then stabbed him in the back while Petra wasn’t looking.

For Petra, I found her reasoning the most believable actually. Jade was her entire world, so of course she would do what Jade said. What I didn’t find believable was how incompetent she was. However, it seems like Jade had been covering for her the entire time, so she’d always gotten away with her mistakes.

For Flint, why did he seize such a risky opportunity to dive with Petra? She immediately got her ass kicked by a creature on the First Layer because she was preoccupied and desperate and tired, so she was even less competent than usual. Why didn’t that convince him to regroup and try again later? What was he going to do if Jade was dead—leave Petra for dead as well? He didn’t have a strict deadline like Jade did, and I’m sure that he would have been better off with countless other people that he knew.

It’s because of all of this that I find the ending satisfying. I don’t think that any of them should have gotten out of there alive lol.

Secondly, I found Petra’s rapid acceptance of Jade’s betrayal and death jarring. She didn’t linger over the body or reminisce or agonize—she just moved on and daydreamed about kissing Flint. It didn’t match her earlier devotion or her established personality imo.