Beneath the Ice by Alton Gansky Review

Beneath the Ice was published in the early 2000s, when survival and adventure-type novels were incredibly popular. I was pretty excited to dive into this book and I'm happy to report it was just as nostalgic as I thought it would be. The action is very similar to an Indiana Jones plot and follows the habits of similar adventure and survival media pretty closely. It centers around a team of professionals going out to Antarctica in order to study unusual glacier activity. Its part of the Perry Sachs series, but I've never read any of the other books and at no point was I confused about the characters or the plot. It's also technically an adult novel, but it'd be appropriate for anyone 16 and up. The gore is a little intense in one scene in particular, but not more intense than a lot of the YA books I've read recently.

What I enjoyed about this book:

- The plot! I really did enjoy the storyline of this book and while I felt like the pacing towards the end dragged a little slower than I would've liked, it was still a really compelling read! The plot isn't overly complicated, but it was genuinely fun and kept my interest the entire time. As mentioned previously, it really does feel like an old adventure story.

- The information! This might seem like a weird point, but it's evident the author did his research when writing this book. I'm not a scientist and know nothing about glaciers or Antarctica, but I walked away from this book feeling like I'd learned a little bit about how they're studied.

- The tone! While there are some darker moments, it's a really nice, fun read and has a lot of humor sprinkled throughout.

Aspects of this book that weren't for me:

- The way that Christianity is portrayed. I feel sort of weird putting this here because I am a Christian, but certain parts of this book were just too on the nose for me. There are quite a few moments in which characters have conversations about faith and the Bible, but they feel more cheesy than genuine.

- The way that women are portrayed. I have some mixed feelings about this point because all of the women present are clearly capable and none of them fall into the trope of needing someone to save them, but a lot of early descriptions of the women revolve around their appearance and their interest in the main character. This improves throughout the book, but it rubbed me the wrong way initially.

I ended up giving this book a 3 star rating. The descriptions are vivid and it was nice to return to an older adventure novel for the first time in quite awhile for me. However, its slow pacing in certain sections and the bluntness of some of its themes held it back from being four stars for me. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys classic adventure novels and doesn't mind some of the more cheesy aspects of the genre!

TW: Death, murder, explosives, and gore (ultimately the gore is pretty light, but there are a couple of scenes where there are some graphic descriptions).