The Abyss Surrounds Us Review: Is It Worth Reading?

Q: Is The Abyss Surrounds Us a standalone?

No. It's book one of a finished duology, followed by The Edge of the Abyss in 2017. Readers often describe the two as one story split in half, so plan to read both.

Verdict: A fast, original YA sea-monster adventure with a captor and captive romance that takes consent seriously, held back by a page count too short for the world it builds and an ending that leaves the couple in pieces.

Best for: Readers who want sapphic pirates and genetically engineered kaiju in under 300 pages, who like a morally grey crew, and who are fine waiting until book two for the romance to land.

Heat level: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5: romance.io’s “glimpses and kisses”, one kiss on the page)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.6/5: a 3.86 Goodreads average across 7,613 ratings, docked because readers keep asking for the book it could have been at 400 pages)

Tropes: Captor and captive, enemies to lovers, slow burn, pirates, monster training, morally grey crew, forbidden love, power imbalance, betrayal, young adult.

The Abyss Surrounds Us is Emily Skrutskie’s 2016 debut and the first half of the Abyss duology from Flux, a young adult science fiction adventure set on a flooded future Pacific where shipping companies hire bioengineered monsters to keep pirates off their hulls, and where a teenage monster trainer named Cas Leung gets taken by the exact people her family’s business was built to stop, then handed to a pirate girl named Swift to guard.

It sits on a 3.86 Goodreads average from 7,613 ratings, picked up a Kirkus review that Amazon’s editorial block lists as starred, and got a Nancy Wu audiobook from Tantor six years after it came out. Most people who finish it liked it. A lot of them also say, in one way or another, that it ended right when it got good. That tension is the thing to understand before you start. If you’re browsing more broadly, it’s one of the picks on our lesbian sci-fi books list.

What Is The Abyss Surrounds Us About?

This is YA science fiction first and romance second. Goodreads readers shelve it as fantasy, science fiction, LGBT and pirates in roughly that order, and that’s a fair read. The setting is a climate-wrecked NeoPacific after an event the book calls the Schism, with floating cities, a shrinking fishery and a mainland that keeps its order through Reckoners: huge engineered beasts, raised from pups, that escort ships and eat whatever attacks them. Nobody in this world cares that two girls might fall for each other. Class and loyalty are what get people killed.

Cas is a Reckoner trainer from a family that breeds them, and what she lacks is any idea that the system she serves might be rotten. Swift is the pirate assigned to make sure she does her job, and what Swift assumes is that Cas is a mainland kid who’ll break. The whole book is in Cas’s first-person, present-tense voice, which keeps the pace up and keeps Swift a mystery. That cuts both ways, and I’ll get to it.

What Makes This Sapphic YA Sci-Fi Adventure Work

The monsters: Almost every review, positive or not, starts by saying the premise is something they hadn’t seen before. One reviewer who works in marine biology called the science solid, which is not a compliment most monster books earn.
The captivity rules: Cas and Swift explicitly don’t act on the attraction while one of them is the other’s guard. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, Reactor’s Liz Bourke and several Goodreads reviewers single this out. It’s what keeps this enemies-to-lovers setup from tipping into Stockholm territory.
Santa Elena: The pirate captain is the character people remember. Readers call her frightening and smart, and Kirkus singles out the two women of color running this world as larger than life without being stereotypes.
Speed: Readers keep saying they read it in a sitting. The SLJ review calls it a quick read and means it as a selling point.
A world without homophobia: The slow burn between Cas and Swift is complicated by guns and loyalty, never by anyone objecting to two girls. Several reviewers name that as a relief.

Book Synopsis

Cassandra Leung has spent her whole life getting ready for one job. Her family raises Reckoners, monsters grown in tanks and trained to swim beside cargo ships and cruise liners, and the job is to stand on deck and point one at anything that threatens the cargo. Her first solo assignment is a luxury cruise with a Reckoner called Durga, whom she’s raised and trusts completely. Durga gets sick on the way out. The captain won’t turn back.

Pirates hit the ship. Durga doesn’t survive it, and Cas wakes up on the Minnow, a pirate vessel run by Santa Elena, a captain who has gotten her hands on something no pirate is supposed to have: an unhatched Reckoner egg. The deal is simple. Cas raises the pup and trains it to fight for the people who killed her Reckoner, or she goes over the side. Her minder, jailer and shadow is Swift, a pirate about her own age who is very good at her job and very hard to read.

The pup hatches, and Cas names him Bao. Training him means sleeping in a bunk on a ship full of people who’d happily see her dead, learning which of them are cruel and which are only practical, and noticing that Swift keeps getting between her and the worst of it. It also means asking how a pirate got a Reckoner egg in the first place, and who on the mainland sold it. The longer Cas stays, the less sure she is which side she’s training Bao for, and whether she’ll want to go home if the chance comes.

My Review

The premise is the best thing here, and it’s good enough to carry a lot. Pirates versus trained sea monsters, on a drowned future Pacific, told from inside the head of the girl who trains the monsters: I’d have read that from the pitch alone, and Skrutskie doesn’t waste it. The opening attack is scary. Bao’s growth from a slimy hatchling to something that can sink a warship is the most fun I had with the book, and the final battle reads like a movie in the best way.

The second thing it gets right is harder. A captive falling for her guard is a setup YA has handled badly plenty of times, and this book knows it. Cas and Swift name the imbalance out loud and decide not to do anything about the attraction while it stands. Bourke at Reactor called that kind of acknowledgment rare, and Smart Bitches gave it as their favorite element. I agree with both. The tension is better for it, and the one kiss means more because of how long the book makes you wait.

Where it struggles is length, and this isn’t my pet complaint. Being too short and too thin is the single most repeated criticism I found, from four-and-a-half-star fans as well as two-star skeptics. One reader said it needed about another hundred pages. Around that sit the knock-on problems: the worldbuilding raises questions it doesn’t answer (at least six reviewers flag it), Cas reads as passive or hard to follow at key moments (also around six), a few say the action blurs, and three separate reviewers say they never got a clear picture of what a Reckoner looks like. Even the people defending the book often add that they wanted more of it.

The other thing to reset is the romance. Because it’s all Cas’s point of view, Swift stays guarded, and Carrie S at Smart Bitches felt the relationship stayed underdeveloped as a result. Then the last chapters make a choice that hurts. I won’t spoil it, but five of the Goodreads reviewers I read flag the ending as a gut punch, and it’s not a happily-ever-after. If you came for a romance, treat this as half of one. If you came for monsters, you’ll be fine.

My honest note: A great idea told at a sprint, with a romance that respects its own power imbalance. If you need the relationship settled by the last page, buy both books before you start. If a sharp, short adventure is what you want, this delivers.

Element	In The Abyss Surrounds Us
Central relationship	Cas Leung and Swift: captured Reckoner trainer and the pirate assigned to guard her
Core tropes	Captor and captive, enemies to lovers, slow burn, pirates, monster training, betrayal
Setting	The Minnow, a pirate ship on a flooded future NeoPacific, plus the floating city of the Flotilla
Heat level	1/5: glimpses and kisses, one kiss on the page
Series	Abyss duology book 1 of 2. No HEA here; the romance resolves in The Edge of the Abyss (2017)
Content notes	Captivity and coercion, violence and naval battles with civilian deaths, a man fed to a sea monster, animal harm and death, strong language, betrayal

How Spicy Is The Abyss Surrounds Us?

Not at all, and that’s by design. romance.io puts it in its lowest band, “glimpses and kisses”, based on 44 ratings, and Common Sense Media lists the sum total as flirting, cuddling in a shared bunk and a single kiss, with no nudity. Kirkus pitches it at 14 and up, School Library Journal at grade nine and up, and Common Sense at 12 and up. Amazon’s product listing says grades four to seven, which I’d ignore given the violence.

The thing to flag isn’t heat, it’s harm. Readers warn about animal cruelty and Reckoner deaths, Common Sense rates the violence and language as “a lot”, and one character’s execution by sea monster is the scene most reviewers remember. If a closed-door book with a sharper edge is what you’re after, Some Desperate Glory and Gideon the Ninth sit in the same 1/5 band.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want a premise you haven’t read before, you like captor and captive stories handled with some care about consent, you enjoy morally grey crews and a scary villain, and you’re happy with a short book you can finish in an evening.

You may want to skip it if: you need a happy ending in every volume, you want deep worldbuilding with the gaps filled in, you get frustrated by a heroine who reacts more than she acts, or you can’t handle animal death on the page.

In short: a sharp, original first act of a two-book story, best for readers who’ll pick up the sequel.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (November 2026)

This is a ten-year-old backlist title, so there’s no launch buzz to measure. I found no BookTok trend attached to it, and I couldn’t get Reddit or StoryGraph’s stats to load for this one, so I can’t speak to either. What it does have is a long tail. The 7,613 Goodreads ratings came in steadily through blogs that kept recommending it: LGBTQReads made it a Backlist Book of the Month in 2017, Lesbrary reviewed it twice, and it shows up on library platforms like Hoopla. The main development of the last few years is audio. Tantor released an unabridged edition in February 2022, read by Nancy Wu and running 7 hours 26 minutes, which is short enough to finish in a couple of commutes. Listener comment on the narration is thin, though the one Audible reviewer who mentioned it was happy with her.

Prefer audio? Listen to The Abyss Surrounds Us on Libro.fm, the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The monsters come first, nearly every time. “Original” is the word that keeps coming back, and Skiffy and Fanty compares the scale of the fights to Pacific Rim. Next is the way the book handles the captor dynamic: I counted seven reviewers across Goodreads and blogs praising how it deals with consent and power, which is a lot for one aspect of a YA novel. Santa Elena gets her own fan club. Plenty of readers also mention the cast (a Chinese-American lead, a mostly female crew, a world where nobody’s sexuality is a problem) and the speed.

What readers argue about and complain about: Length, above everything. Fans and critics alike say it’s too short for its own ideas, and the people who read the sequel say the same about both books. Second is the worldbuilding: Bourke wondered why nobody uses Reckoners as weapons beyond pirate patrol, and Skiffy and Fanty questioned whether the ocean’s ecology could hold up. Third is Cas. Some find her believable (Kirkus does), while a recurring minority call her passive or bland, and say her late choices aren’t set up well. Smaller notes: a predictable mystery about who leaked the egg, action scenes a couple of readers found hard to follow, and one reviewer who felt Santa Elena’s son was a subplot with nowhere to go. The real split is the captivity itself. Two Goodreads reviewers still felt a Stockholm syndrome pull, while many more thought the book handled it better than most. Both readings are out there.

The series question everyone should ask first: Book one doesn’t end with a happily-ever-after. It closes its main plot, but a last-minute reveal leaves Cas and Swift neither together nor fully apart, as Lesbrary put it. The sequel, The Edge of the Abyss (Flux, April 2017), rates higher at 4.07 across 3,207 Goodreads ratings, Kirkus called it satisfying, and at least one blogger confirms it ends with a happy ending for the couple. The duology is complete. If you hate being left hanging, wait until you’ve got book two in hand, because the gap between them is the worst part.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does The Abyss Surrounds Us have a happy ending?

Not in book one. The main plot wraps up, but a late betrayal leaves Cas and Swift unresolved. The happy ending comes in the sequel, The Edge of the Abyss.

Is The Abyss Surrounds Us a standalone?

No. It’s book one of a finished duology, followed by The Edge of the Abyss in 2017. Readers often describe the two as one story split in half, so plan to read both.

How spicy is The Abyss Surrounds Us?

A 1/5. romance.io rates it “glimpses and kisses”, and Common Sense Media counts cuddling and one kiss. It’s young adult, so there’s nothing explicit.

What age is The Abyss Surrounds Us for?

Teens and up. Kirkus says 14 and up and School Library Journal says grade nine and up. Expect real violence, animal death and strong language.

Is there an audiobook?

Yes. Tantor Media released it in 2022, narrated by Nancy Wu and running 7 hours 26 minutes unabridged.

If You Loved The Abyss Surrounds Us, Read These Next

The closest match on our shelves is Compass Rose by Anna Burke, which puts sapphic pirates on a flooded future ocean and adds a little more heat. For YA sapphic pirates with magic instead of monsters, try The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea, which has a similar captive-on-a-ship setup. And if what you liked was a teenage girl raised to serve a cruel system starting to question it, Some Desperate Glory runs that idea in space with far more pages to do it.

For more in this register, browse our paranormal and fantasy lesbian romance reviews, the forbidden love picks, or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

The Abyss Surrounds Us has a bigger idea than its page count. The monsters are original, the captor dynamic is handled with real care, and Santa Elena is a villain worth the price on her own. It’s also too short, it leaves its world half explained, and it ends with the couple in worse shape than they started. For readers who love a high-concept YA adventure and are willing to read book two, that trade is easy. For anyone who wants a complete romance in one volume, it’s half a meal. Check The Abyss Surrounds Us on Amazon

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, The Abyss Surrounds Us ranks as a high-concept YA sapphic sci-fi adventure. It’s original and quick, with a captor romance that respects its own imbalance, held back by its length. Read it for the monsters and the setup, not for a finished love story.