Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 Alert! Red Alert! We have a f/f science fiction book with strong romantic elements featuring an Asian-Northern American heroine who trains genetically-engineered sea monsters to attack ships and who is forced to work for pirates! This is not a drill! Catnip ahoy! 
 The Abyss Surrounds Us is a science fiction YA in which Earth's political and geographical boundaries have been altered by flooding. Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Leung comes from a family who trains Reckoners, genetically engineered animals who protect ships at sea. On her first trip as a solo trainer, Cas's Reckoner is killed and she is captured by pirates. She's supposed to take a suicide pill, but she puts it off for too long and is forced to stay alive. The pirates have their own Reckoner pup (basically a giant and ferocious sea turtle) and they want Cas to train it for them. 
 This book dodges one overused YA trope but abuses another. First of all, the positive: there is no love triangle. I don't object to love triangles on principle - I've read some wonderful stories that use love triangles to devastating effect. They are simply overused. Post Twilight, there was a period in which it seemed like every YA I picked up had a love triangle. The "love triangle" trope became like a song that is perfectly good but is played on the radio so many times that you can't listen to it anymore without your fingernails going all scritchy. So anytime I pick up a YA, if there isn't a love triangle, I rejoice. 
 Alas, this book does abuse a common trope in the most irritating way, and that is the use of first person, present tense narration. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with either first person or present tense narration. When used properly, present tense provides a sense of urgency, while first person shows us exactly what is going on in the heads of the characters. This works best when the protagonists are people who are hiding their thoughts, feelings, and plans from other people - think Katniss in Hunger Games, or the three narrators in the adult book The Girl on the Train. When first person narration, or present tense narration, or both, are used for a specific purpose, the results can be thrilling and insightful. 
 The reason first person present tense narration gets such a bad rap is that so very, very often it's used for no apparent reason. It's used in YA so frequently it suffers from the same "overplayed song on the radio" syndrome as love triangles. Cas has something of a hidden plan, but she's not so wily that the only way to explain the story is to make her the narrator. She's also one of the less interesting characters in the story. Cas is likeable enough, but for someone who trains giant sea monsters to be ruthless killers she's surprisingly bland. Keeping the focus entirely on Cas' point of view makes sense in theory, because it forces the viewer to share her sense of disorientation and outsider status. Unfortunately, Cas isn't a sufficiently complex character to hold up an entire book, and the supporting characters seem much more interesting than she does. And since a lot of the book involves waiting for things to happen, the sense of urgency is, much of the time, flat. 
 It's something of a sideways compliment that my problem with the book was that it felt so incredibly promising in terms of world and character that I wanted more of it. This book tells a complete story, but it doesn't feel entirely satisfying. I wanted a longer introduction, with Cas' family and how they work with Reckoners. I wanted more Reckoners, period. I wanted to spend more time in the heads of the pirate crew. The Abyss is so intriguing that I wanted it to go deeper, no pun intended. It's the author's first book and I'll be curious to see if she goes into more detail in future books. In the meantime, I enjoyed the setting, the relationships between people on the pirate ship, and the Reckoners, even though I wanted more. 
 - Carrie S.