I have absolutely loved this book. I knew what to expect from it after reading Bees and I wasn't disappointed. Yet again author made me have all the feelings for creatures I never knew or thought about before. It's beautifully written and gripping.

Ea has always felt like an outsider. She suffers from a type of deafness that means she cannot master the spinning rituals that unite her pod of spinner dolphins. When tragedy strikes her family and Ea feels she is partly to blame, she decides to make the ultimate sacrifice and leave.

As Ea ventures into the vast, she discovers dangers everywhere, from lurking predators to strange objects floating in the water. But just as she is coming to terms with her solitude, a chance encounter with a group of arrogant bottlenoses will irrevocably alter the course of her life.

In her terrifying, propulsive novel, Laline Paull explores the true meaning of family, belonging, sacrifice - the harmony and tragedy of the pod - within an ocean that is no longer the sanctuary it once was, and which reflects a world all too recognisable to our own.

Idid not enjoy Pod at all, and I’m very sad about it! I was expecting to really enjoy this book because I’ve heard excellent things about Paull’s other books, in particular The Bees. I’m really intrigued by marine biology, and I’m big into environmentalism, so I thought Pod was going to be a hit with me.

Unfortunately I couldn’t stomach it. I really enjoyed the first part where we were getting to know Ea, and I liked the POV switches too as we saw more pods or solo animals and learnt of their struggles. But then the sexual assaults started happening again and again, and I really didn’t sign up to read about dolphins being gang r*ped over and over.

It was honestly tragic and it left me feeling absolutely miserable. I understand a little of what the author was going for with the themes, but it was just too much. I would have liked more subtlety, to be honest!

Having read, loved and recommended The Bees many times (and The Ice, too!), I thought I knew what to expect from Laline Paull. Well, I was right and wrong!

Firstly, I loved Pod.
Secondly, it gave me a lot to think about.
Thirdly, how does Laline Paull put herself in a dolphins shoes (flippers? Sorry…) and not make it sound like a children’s book? And I should stress: this is NOT a children’s book.

Paull may have anthropomorphised dolphins, various fish, all and any sea life, but she has stayed pretty close to what I’ve learnt is their true nature (thank you David Attenborough!). Dolphins are very intelligent, playful and seem to know what humans want (maybe that’s just me reading more into these things). But they’re also hunters, they have a pecking order, and I don’t think you’d want to be at the bottom of it if you were a dolphin!

This novel shows the joyful side of being a dolphin, the way that they must work together for the greater good of the pod. It also shows how violent they are - there’s even a dolphin rape scene that was every bit as upsetting as if it had been a human.

In amongst all the dolphin drama is a message for us humans. We see the damage the human race is doing to the oceans: pollution, over-fishing, capturing dolphins for food, entertainment, or warfare.

Pod is graphic in places. It most definitely doesn’t pull its punches - and why should it?

This novel is not sentimental, jam packed with happy, child-friendly dolphins. Pod looks at the real struggles of sea life (and there’s not just dolphins involved). These dolphins are fighters, authoritarian, protective of one another, followers of tradition as well as migration routes, they deal with the results of humanity’s selfishness and cost-cutting.

The imagination and empathy that must have gone in to writing this: I’ve seen how a dolphin, a whale, a wrasse, a clam, a remora and a sea anemone feel and behave (I like to think so, anyway!).
How could I NOT love this book? 🤷🏼‍♀️

So I finally read POD by Laline Paull. The publisher was so nice to grant me access to a review copy for the paperback publication. Thank you!

I had a kind of torn reading experience with this book in the end. I vibed with some of the ideas and had problems with others. Like in BEES you are in the world and mind of an animal, for some reason that didn't work as well for me as it did in BEES. Probably because presumably a dolphin's mind is more similar to a human's than a bee's would be? Anyway, I had some problems with getting into this kind of setting or point of view.

I did enjoy the writing, though. The acutal reading experience - as in words on the page - was great! The plot wasn't quite my cup of tea, also: content warning! And some (undoubtedly important) messages were implemented a bit bluntly, I think. Altogether it read more of the obsessive quality of fanfiction than I normally like for my fiction. (I once had a running joke with an old work colleague when working in the bookstore that we should write a trashy book series called "Killer Dolphins" about some kind of military organisation dolphin pod... and well, I had to think about this all the time while reading POD... but this certainly isn't the books fault!)

So, I really wanted to love this, but unfortunately I didn't. I'm sure others will though.

Really imaginative read!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book.

The Pod centres on two competing Dolphin communities, the peace- loving Spinners, once turned away from their homeland by the more aggressive Bottlenose Pod. Ea is a young Spinner who seems unable to surrender to the sounds of the ocean like her contemporaries, but whose real troubles begin after she leaves the pod in grief when her mother dies. Eventually she is captured by some young Bottlenose warriors, taken to their pod where she becomes the plaything and youngest member of the Leader’s harem.
Like the majority, I was fascinated by The Bees. Maybe that just makes it too hard an act to follow and while The Pod undoubtedly highlights humankind’s complete disregard for ocean life, this read is not an enjoyable experience.
There were too many stories to follow; the lost Rorqual Whale, the depressed Wrasse and worst of all, gravely injured Google, destroyed mentally and physically. None of these tales augured well.
The violence and the rape scenes felt repetitive and were difficult to deal it, and it was almost a relief when having adjusted to her new pod, Ea leads the defences in a fairly classic action sequence against the common enemy who turns out to be human rather than sea demon and it could be over.

A gripping and throught provoking read that took a bit of time to get into but once I did I was hooked and couldn't put it down

Paull’s story engaged me from the start. Ea is a dolphin who doesn’t want to be like the others in her pod in the ocean. Early on she identifies with a whale who is painfully sad. Like the whale, she feels somewhat isolated by her feelings. To be within the pod is to comply with all their associated rituals but Ea does not want to participate. A remora then takes residence on Ea much to her horror. There is nothing her pod can do however for if forcibly removed, the wound left would keep bleeding. So Ea must bear this chattering burden.

There are tales linking to other tales in this novel which reminds me of the continual ebb and flow of the tides. The community of each pod is safety though dangers arise everywhere. The whale story is told, the decimation of his people from the intrusion of man, who are conducting military experiments. Other pods are encountered and we are given a look into terrible things that can happen within a pod during a storm. In this watery world, the sexual urges of dolphins are no different to any other species.

From all this sadness however emerges love and hope. An original novel which brings in another perspective to dolphins, different to viewing them in the way of a nature documentary.

This book is written in third person. This meant that it took a while to get into it. Interesting topics discussed.