Honestly pretty horrifying and engaging. Its crazy to think that this books was written in the 19th century! It felt like the original "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" story alongside Frankenstein. Definitely a great classic!

I did enjoy the idea of this book and some of the interesting scifi concepts, but man is it really dragged down by the characters. It was a cool interpretation of the Atlantis myth and a pretty generic "utopia", with a plot that was pretty basic with not a ton happening up until the the very end. I didn't like a single character. The divers got on my nerves so much that I struggled to finish the book at all because of how insufferable they were the entire time. Perry was frustrating in the beginning and then just kinda faded into the background. Donald and Suzanne were the most reasonable throughout the story, but even still they were impossible to root for. Definitely not my favorite, despite a promising premise.

I can see how this would have been revolutionary at its time but I don’t think it was for me. I wasn’t a big fan of the “story within a story” style in which this story was told and the overall plot was interesting but I feel like didn’t resolve in the best way.