The Aquanaut Books in Order

The Aquanaut is a standalone graphic novel, but it has the sweep of a longer adventure. It blends grief, environmental concern, slapstick, and found-family warmth without ever losing its kid-centered point of view.

At the center is Sophia Revoy, a girl still living in the shadow of her father's death at sea. She lives around Aqualand, the marine park her father and uncle helped build, but the place no longer feels like the hopeful dream it once did. Her uncle Paul is present, but he is grieving in his own closed-off way, and Sophia is left carrying a lot of sadness on her own.

Then a walking diving suit arrives, and the book gets gloriously weird.

Inside the suit is a crew of sea creatures, including a hermit crab, two octopuses, and a sea turtle, trying to make sense of the human world. Their scenes bring a lot of the book's comedy. Santat gets plenty of mileage out of animals piloting old equipment, fumbling through life on land, and reacting to the strange rules of a theme park that claims to celebrate the ocean while controlling it.

That setup is fun, but the story is really about two kinds of rescue.

Sophia needs a way back to her father and to the part of herself that still believes in wonder. The sea-creature crew needs a safe future for animals who are being treated as attractions instead of living beings. Once those goals line up, the book becomes a fast-moving mission story. There are escapes, discoveries, and plenty of visual energy, but the stakes stay clear and personal.

Aqualand matters because it sits right in the middle of the book's tension. It is part aquarium, part memorial, part business, and part broken promise. Santat uses that setting well. The bright public face of the park bumps up against grief, corporate thinking, and the question of what it means to truly care for the creatures people say they love. None of this turns the book into a lecture. It still moves like an adventure first.

Readers should expect a graphic novel with a big heart and a slightly offbeat sense of humor. If you like animal teams, ocean settings, and stories where the jokes live right next to genuine feeling, The Aquanaut is an easy one to sink into. Even as a standalone, it gives you a full world: one sad kid, one damaged family, four determined sea creatures, and a real sense that kindness and courage can still change the course of things.