Four years after the events of Meg, Dr. Jonas Taylor is worried about the meg they previously captured escaping from the exhibit. The Tanaka Institute is also working with new investors to fulfill their UNIS seismic detector contract with the Japanese government.

I really wanted to love this book. I had high expectations coming off of Meg but they weren’t reached. The plot itself was lack luster. I knew right from the start that there were bad guys and who they were. I was frustrated with Jonas, Masao, and Terry the whole time for being so blind. On the other hand, I kind of do understand that they were in such a bad place after years of lawsuits that even if they clued into what was happening, they couldn’t do much about it. Other than call the authorities… which maybe they should have.

I was also really upset about the state of Jonas and Terry’s relationship the entire book. It made me mad that we skipped 4 years of ‘good’ and went straight to the bad. I thought Jonas and Terry were both being very unreasonable. And then the fact that they were apart the entire book, with people actively trying to ruin their relationship and get them to cheat on each other, was rude.

The whole suspense situation of the book was… alright… I guess. The scenes with Angel and the other creatures in the trench just really didn’t compare to the first book. The ending was probably the best part.

Overall, I was really disappointed by how crude and icky this book made me feel. Especially after having loved the first book and not having felt icky at all. The language in this book was a lot worse, and there was way too much focus on Celeste trying to seduce Jonas. There were also so many unnecessary mentions of people being naked, ‘urinating,’ touching, being aroused, and everything else. It was crude. I was also completely and utterly disturbed by Celeste and Benedict. There are no other words. I can’t tell you how many times I asked myself if I should just DNF it. And looking back… I don’t know. I guess I just wish it had been better.

*Upon further inspection, it’s come to my attention that the paperback and digital versions of The Trench are not the same. I read the majority of the book digitally, but when I was trying to reference the most sexual scene in the book for the content rating, it wasn’t in the paperback version. It was completely toned down. That makes me wish I had waited for my paper version to arrive instead of starting on the digital copy—maybe more of the things that made me uncomfortable and disappointed aren’t in the paperback. But I don’t know.