This book was not what I was expecting. I expected more about shipwrecks and less personal stories. It was also unclear to me whether it was the narrator's struggles or his friend's struggles through the book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for my copy of Graveyard of the Pacific Shipwreck and Survival on America’s Deadliest Waterway by Randall Sullivan Narrated by Lynch Travis in exchange for an honest review. It published June 6, 2023.
First off, the narration was decent, however, so many of the PNW words were mispronounced, so much so, that it felt like there was zero research done. I understand that folks from further east don't know these words, but it wouldn't hurt to research. Spokane is pronounced Spo-can. Willamette is not "willa-met" it is will-a-met. Do not get me started on the mispronunciations of Oregon, and even worse, Oregonian pronounced as "Or-i-gain-e-an" almost had me quit the book. I implore anyone who is reading books with lots of place names to do some simple research on how to pronounce.
As far at the book goes, I loved the history parts! The memoir portion I felt would've worked better on its own.

I was so annoyed by this book. The narrator's cadence was completely off. making it hard to understand. I threw of the entire pace of the story. The narrator's timelines were also confusing. I felt like I wasted my time and learned nothing. It was a very trying expeirence.

DNF at 15%.

I was hoping that this would be a story about the history of this waterway, given the title and cover, but instead it is a memoir.

Graveyard of the Pacific is a fascinating mix of memoir, adventure, and history.

Randall Sullivan writes about his attempt to cross the Columbia River Bar in a kayak with his friend, Ray. The Bar is where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean; over 2,000 ships have been wrecked in this location.

Sullivan gives the history of crossings of the bar, highlighting the people, politics, and economics involved in some of the biggest disasters. He describes them vividly and I loved his look at the personalities behind the sailors and rescuers. Some of the stories are exciting and some are heartbreaking.

Sullivan also takes a hard look at his own motivations for trying to cross the deadly waterway in a kayak, at the age of 70. I wasn’t expecting the heavy focus on memoir in this book, but it was a fascinating, moving read. Sullivan talks about the history of his family and the abuse he survived at the hands of his father, a former sailor. Sullivan shares his own views on toxic masculinity and generational trauma.

I’m not normally a memoir reader but I found myself completely captivated. Lynch Travis’s immersive narration of the audiobook definitely helped suck me in.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for my review copy of this audiobook.

The Graveyard of the Pacific weaves the maritime history of the Columbia Bar, with two mens journey to navigate that bar themselves, and their own story growing up at the hands of abusive fathers. This is a deeply personal story, as well as a fascinating history of the graveyard of the pacific, and an adventure story. This book has a lot to offer, but I came to it for the maritime history, not the two additional interwoven human stories. If you know what you are in for, you will find this to be a real gem!

Thank you to the publisher, as well as NetGalley for providing me with the audiobook version of this book in exchange for an honest review.

At first I wasn’t sure about this book. I had assumed it would only be about shipwrecks but there was an added twist of personal life included in this one too. As it went on, I found that the stories tied together and it made sense that the author would include his personal back story. With some interesting facts about ship wrecks and life, this was pretty enjoyable.

Thanks to #NetGalley for an audio ARC of #GraveyardofthePacific. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

The publisher's description of this book sounded like the perfect NF book for me: an interesting historical subject (the Columbia Bar crossing, which I knew nothing about) overlaid with the author's personal story and connection with the Columbia Bar and his quest to cross it in a kayak. Sullivan skillfully balanced the historical and personal stories. For me, it got bogged down in the very technical details of sailing and I ended up DNFing around 75%. I appreciated the writing and think anyone with an interest in boating and/or maritime history would appreciate this book. I listened to the ARC on audio and liked the narrator/performance.

Many thanks to Net Galley and Dreamscape Media for an audio copy of Graveyard of the Pacific.

I really did not like this book. I found my mind wandering so many times I lost the premise of the book.

I honestly don't know how i feel about this book.
Its not what i expected. I was expecting stories.
However it revealed a lot of personal background, more like a memoir.
Tho the book also gave a lot of interesting facts on wreck that i normally wouldn't think about.
one thing i dislike is that, the lack of structure, for me it was unclear what the purpose of each chapters. I wish for a cleaner build.
Other than that, this is a book what i normally don't lay my eyes on and i did learnt something new.
and the synopsis is way too long for my taste.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
I was excited to listen to this one however it was quite different than the description.
Book was not at all what I expected which was rather disappointing.

I was so very excited to read through this book! I love anything to do with shipwrecks and those who are involved. There are some fantastic stories out there, and some heartbreaking ones as well.

This book is a tad misleading. When reading the book blurb, and based on the title, you would think that this book focuses on shipwrecks, and of course, a ship graveyard in the Pacific.
Instead, you get the life story of the author and the horrific abuses that he suffered at the hands of his father. A friend, who also suffered abuse from a father - and then - finally - some stories about shipwrecks in the area.

Now, I will say, there was enough in this book to keep me interested, however, it was not what I was expecting. Overall, it was a decent read.

💭Thoughts:
This was a really fascinating book. I especially enjoyed the story because I live in Oregon and am very familiar with the Columbia River. The book is full of stories about many different shipwrecks and life as a sailor and bar pilot.

The book also includes stories about the author and his friend Roy’s difficult relationships with their fathers. Randall also touches on toxic masculinity as well. It was interesting, but it felt a bit out of place in the context of this book. It almost felt like the author could have written two separate books. Both interesting topics that just didn’t mesh well for me.

The narrator did a great job overall, but one issue I had was that he mispronounced how to say Oregon and Willamette. I’m sure it won’t matter to most listeners, but being from Oregon it made me cringe every time he said it wrong.

Overall, an interesting book with lots of promise. It just felt a bit disjointed for me.

The description of Randall Sullivan's Graveyard of the Pacific is a bit misleading; rather than a study of shipwrecks in the Columbia River mouth, a la an author like Erik Larson, Sullivan focuses on memoir, his own experiences as a 70-something man attempting to cross a notoriously dangerous waterway in a two-person kayak.

The historical notes are well-researched, with a few misleading details (e.g. the life expectancy in 1800 was low due to infant mortality rates and no one was actually surprised Merriwether Lewis didn't drop dead at 35). The focus is on men, which makes sense considering the time (largely 19th-century) and context (ships captains), but I was still surprised to find no mention of women who have also navigated the Columbia River mouth (Deborah Dempsey, a Columbia River Bar Pilot, only recently retired).

The autobiographical sections of the work focus on Sullivan's relationship with his abusive father and how that shaped him into the kind of man who would attempt such a dangerous crossing. These sections are dripping with machismo in a way that reads defensive rather than exploratory or revelatory; though Sullivan recognizes that the way he embodies masculinity is probably "toxic," he defends this as a virtuous kind of manliness that should be above reproach (including boomers' economic policies) because it indicates progress away from physically abusive fathers.

Lynch Travis' narration was perfect. He conveyed the attention to historical details with the emotions of personal reflection.

This is definitely a dad book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the advanced audiobook.

This book is very relevant to my locale and personal experience so I figured I’d give it a read. It was fine and at some times interesting but the book suffered from a lack of focus. It had three distinct segments- that of the authors current quest to cross the Columbia river bar, the stories of other ships to suffer in doing so, and past trauma on the part of the author and his close friend. The three narratives felt very disjointed and I wished there was much more of the history of shipwrecks as those were the most interesting.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the audio-ARC

As a multi-generational Oregonian, I’m always interested in books that explore this wild and wonderful state. It’s been years since I was last in Astoria, but the area is amazing in the violence of its beauty and long history. The historical accounts of the Columbia Bar were interesting in this book, however it was an uneven read.

There are some really strong points to this book: 1. The memoir element seems to attempt to dive deep, but relies heavily on the trauma surrounding the author and the other characters. 2. The accounts of past wrecks intertwined with the author's own journey to cross the bar are well researched and written in an engaging way.

While it is nice to read an account from a 70ish year old white male who is attempting to deal with the legacy of violence that created the toxicity he struggled with throughout his life, there is a lack of beauty or passion that shows how he actually overcame all of that violence. Also, the choices of side stories to include are somewhat chaotic. Why do we suddenly go off on a tangent of a man he knew who was murdered by a prostitute and her drug addicted partner? I wish I knew, it didn’t seem to be necessary for the story and doesn’t happen near the Columbia Bar.

The narration of this book was ROUGH. I almost DNF’d during the first chapter as the narrator mispronounced EVERY place name. Many of the place names in Oregon and Washington come from the indigenous tribes that were displaced for the settlers to take control of that land, at the very lease pronouncing these correctly. Oregon, Willamette, the Oregonian, Skatgit, etc were butchered in that faux phonetic East Coast attempt at pronunciation. Further the fact that 1. These are very commonly used names in Oregon with LOTS of examples to reference, and 2. That later in the book the narrator gets some of them correct, shows me that this was not a very well produced audiobook. If you are looking for this one, I would recommend going for a physical or e-book.

When I first dove into this story I’ll admit I did it without reading the synopsis. I love reading about shipwrecks, even though the stories are usually quite sad. Once I made it to the 30%-ish mark I realized this wasn’t quite what I bargained for and read the synopsis. I then assumed it would be shipwrecks mixed with personal stories but it ended up being the opposite. More personal, less shipwreck. I think I would have enjoyed it more if that had been what I was expecting.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of shipwreck spoken of in this book and it’s quite informative, but after a while the personal stories began to overshadow this and that wasn’t what I expected. Still recommend, just keep in mind that while there are shipwrecks, that’s not exactly the main idea.