In Rachel Reiss’s debut novel, Out of Air, we’re pulled beneath the surface into a world as alluring as it is terrifying. This is not your standard YA thriller – Reiss has crafted something far more insidious and lingering, a story that wraps around you like the tendrils of a sea anemone, seemingly gentle until you realize you can’t break free.
The novel follows Phoebe “Phibs” Ray, a teenage diver whose connection to the underwater world transcends mere hobby. For Phibs, diving is escape, identity, and solace. When she and her four closest friends—collectively known as the “Salt Squad”—discover a spectacular underwater cave during their post-graduation trip to a remote Australian island, they unknowingly set in motion a transformation that blurs the boundary between human and marine life in the most unsettling ways imaginable.
What begins as an eerie adventure soon plunges into body horror territory, as Phibs and her best friend (and love interest) Gabe begin developing oozing gashes along their skin after breathing air trapped in a pocket within the mysterious cave. These wounds, reminiscent of gills or fins trying to break through human flesh, become just the first manifestation of whatever ancient entity they’ve encountered in the depths.
Immersive Worldbuilding: The Sea as Character
Reiss’s firsthand experience as a scuba diver shines through in her meticulous and sensory descriptions of the underwater world. From the “plumes of volcanic rock and weaving between bulbous mounds of brain coral” to the “shoals of red snapper” and “schooling barracuda,” the marine environment feels alive and authentic in ways that only someone intimately familiar with diving could capture.
The underwater scenes are rendered with such vivid clarity that readers might find themselves unconsciously holding their breath during particularly tense diving sequences. Reiss demonstrates exceptional skill in creating atmospheric tension through her descriptions of:
The disorienting qualities of diving at night
The panic of running out of air at depth
The primal fear of encountering predators like tiger sharks
The claustrophobia of navigating narrow underwater tunnels
The novel’s setting—a fictional remote island called Marimont in the Appelon Archipelago—serves as the perfect isolated backdrop for the horrors that unfold. This “last great wilderness” becomes both refuge and prison for our protagonists, emphasizing how the most beautiful places often conceal the darkest secrets.
The Undertow of Teenage Dynamics
At its heart, Out of Air by Rachel Reiss is a story about the transition from adolescence to adulthood and the fear of losing the connections that defined your youth. Reiss captures the bittersweet reality of post-graduation friendships with poignant accuracy. The Salt Squad—Phibs, Gabe, his twin brother Will, Lani, and Isabel—exist in that fragile moment before college separates them permanently.
The complex dynamics between these five friends form the emotional core of the novel:
Phibs and Gabe: Their slow-burn romance is complicated by Gabe’s impending departure for college and Phibs’s inability to leave her ailing grandmother
Will and Gabe: The fraternal twins represent opposing forces—ambition versus contentment, aggression versus gentleness
Lani and Isabel: Their established relationship provides stability but faces its own tests when Lani loses fingers in a boating accident
Phibs and the group: Her status as the less wealthy outsider creates underlying tension, especially with Will
What elevates these relationships beyond typical YA fare is how Reiss intertwines them with the supernatural transformation. As Phibs and Gabe begin changing physically, their connection to each other deepens while their relationships with the rest of the world—including their closest friends—inevitably shifts. The body horror becomes a metaphor for how growing up changes us in ways that can make us unrecognizable, even to ourselves.
The Currents of Plot: Strengths and Undertows
Reiss demonstrates remarkable skill in pacing, particularly in the novel’s first half. The discovery of the cave, the initial transformation, the arrival of treasure hunters—these elements flow together with the smooth inevitability of a tide. The plot maintains a delicate balance between supernatural horror and grounded teenage drama that keeps pages turning.
The strongest segments include:
The white-knuckle initial exploration of the underwater tunnel
The tiger shark encounter where Gabe demonstrates newfound abilities
The sea wasp swarm sequence that showcases Phibs’s growing powers
The flashbacks revealing what happened to Sheriff Edwards
However, the novel occasionally loses momentum in its later chapters. The cycles of fever and healing through repeated visits to the cave’s air pocket become somewhat repetitive, and certain revelations—such as Gabe being the one who kept the fifth coin—feel slightly rushed in their resolution. The connection between Phibs’s mother and Lani’s aunt Leila, while intriguing, remains underdeveloped.
Additionally, the novel leaves several questions unanswered, including the exact nature of what has infected Phibs and Gabe. While this ambiguity works on a horror level—sometimes the unexplained is more terrifying—it may frustrate readers seeking clearer mythology. Is it a parasite? An ancient species? Something entirely unclassifiable? The novel hints rather than explains.
Thematic Depths: More Than Meets the Eye
What elevates Out of Air by Rachel Reiss beyond standard YA fare is its thoughtful exploration of deeper themes:
Belonging and Identity
Phibs’s transformation becomes a twisted fulfillment of her deepest desire—to belong somewhere permanently. Her lifelong sense of being an outsider (economically disadvantaged, abandoned by her mother, caretaker to her grandmother) makes her susceptible to the cave’s influence. The horror lies in how she ultimately embraces her transformation, seeing it as finally finding her place, even as it separates her from humanity.
The Price of Discovery
The novel deftly examines how the pursuit of treasure—literal and metaphorical—can lead to unexpected consequences. From the Spanish coins that first brought the Salt Squad fame to the “grail of all grails” buried in the cave, Reiss consistently shows how uncovering what’s hidden can unleash forces beyond control.
Loss and Impermanence
The impending separation of the friend group serves as a microcosm for all forms of loss. Gram’s Alzheimer’s, Lani’s missing fingers, and ultimately Phibs’s transformation all explore different facets of how we cope with losing parts of ourselves or those we love.
Stylistic Currents: Voice and Perspective
Reiss writes in first-person present tense from Phibs’s perspective, creating immediacy and intimacy with our protagonist. This choice proves particularly effective as Phibs’s transformation progresses—we experience her shifting perceptions in real-time, including the disorienting moments when her thoughts become muddled or when she hears the mysterious whispers.
The prose balances lyrical descriptions of the underwater world with the sharp, often sarcastic voice of a teenager on the cusp of adulthood. Reiss excels at sensory writing, particularly in describing:
The physical sensations of diving
The pain and unnatural movements of the transformations
The unique qualities of underwater light and sound
The novel’s structure, which interweaves present-day chapters with flashbacks to key moments from the previous two years, effectively builds tension while gradually revealing the full context of the Salt Squad’s relationships and the events that led them to Marimont.
Final Verdict: A Promising Debut with Dark Depths
Out of Air marks Rachel Reiss as a distinctive new voice in YA horror. While it occasionally struggles with pacing in its final act and leaves some mythology questions unanswered, these minor flaws are easily overlooked given the novel’s immersive world-building, compelling characters, and genuinely unsettling body horror.
The novel will particularly appeal to fans of:
The marine horror of Katya de Becerra’s Oasis
The body transformation elements of Mira Grant’s Into the Drowning Deep
The friend group dynamics of Karen M. McManus’s thrillers
The atmospheric tension of Courtney Summers’s suspense novels
Reiss’s ability to blend technical diving knowledge with supernatural horror creates a unique reading experience that lingers long after the final page. The ambiguous ending—suggesting Phibs deliberately posted the cave photo to ensure the friends would be bound together forever—offers a disturbing twist that recontextualizes the entire narrative.
For a debut novel, Out of Air by Rachel Reiss shows remarkable assurance in both concept and execution. Reiss has crafted a story that operates effectively on multiple levels—as a coming-of-age tale, a supernatural thriller, a body horror narrative, and an exploration of the boundaries between belonging and obsession.
While not perfect, this debut novel demonstrates Reiss’s potential as a powerful new voice in YA horror. Readers who take the plunge into Out of Air will find themselves caught in its narrative currents, pulled ever deeper into its murky, fascinating depths—and perhaps, like Phibs herself, strangely reluctant to return to the surface.