Goodreads Synopsis:
Be careful what you wish for…
She warned of the pain. She did.
But no warning can prepare you.
Nothing can.
How could I have known
What it is like on the dry sand?
We just watched.
It’s hard, not being able to ask
Questions, though I have learned some speech
With my hands. ˆ_ˆ
I miss my sisters.
I have made friends here.
I have laughed with them,
Learned with them, played with them.
I love them.
She said I would die if he loves someone else.
Will I die? At the beginning I wanted to. It hurts
So much. Life isn’t easy, will never be easy, but…
I don’t want to become sea foam.
Review:
This is another book I read thanks to the fantastic Ace Book Club on Twitter and when they announced it I thought it sounded amazing! A little mermaid re-telling in verse with an asexual character? Wow! Unfortunately, this book was just not for me, however, the reasons I didn’t love it were all personal to me and so other people will likely love it for the exact reasons I didn’t enjoy it.
First I’ll start with the writing itself. It’s written in verse and I’m a huge fan of verse novels. Unfortunately, this is in free verse and so to me and my background in very strict forms it was something I struggled with a lot. However, to people that aren’t used to verse novels then free verse is the perfect way to introduce them to the concept because it’s much easier to read. It’s also written in first person and I’m also not a big fan of that. There are also a lot of emoticons used in the text and again, that’s just my personal preference but all these things combined to make me really dislike the way it was written but since it was so short, I kept reading the entire thing. What I’d say is that the extract from Goodreads is a perfect example and if you enjoy that, you’re likely to enjoy it all.
Now that we’ve got the parts I didn’t like out of the way, let’s focus on the amazing parts. For example, the world building in this is really, really good. Unfortunately, we’re restricted a lot in what we see due to the first-person narrative and so just get wonderful glimpses of mermaid society. I also really enjoyed the characters and their interactions and although the main character seemed incredibly naive at points which is something I usually dislike, it makes total sense for somebody not used to human society to appear very naive. I shouldn’t really need to mention it given that it was for Ace Book Club so seems self explanatory but obviously the fact that there are asexual characters was another fantastic inclusion and I really enjoyed that interpretation (Not only is the main character asexual, she also definitely seems aromantic too)
Despite personally not being a fan, I would definitely still recommend this to others because it was just my own personal preferences that stopped me from enjoying it and there was nothing objectively bad about it – I’m just super picky in my verse narratives and found it difficult to get over that. However, for those that enjoy free verse (or have never read any verse narratives) then you should definitely read it as the world and the characters are just enchanting and you’ll be left wanting to know so much more and wishing you could spend more time with them in the fantastic world that has been created.
BrenhinesBooks 