by Anna Banks
Date Read: 3/26/14
Rating: ★ ★ ★
I enjoyed this story enough. The concept of the story was pretty good. I really liked the Syrena (merpeople) and the story between the two mer-kingdoms. But there were some frustrating and annoying aspects of the story as well where the author didn’t execute, which is why I’ve only given this 3 stars.
Things I liked: I liked Galen and Rayna. They were interesting characters to get to
know and I liked seeing their lives on land and in the water. We also got to know their history in the Triton
kingdom. Sure Galen was the typical YA
male love interest (super sexy, everyone wants him), but I’m okay with
that. As long as he wasn’t annoying.
I thought the overall story was good, if you ignored the
annoying things that I list below. The
whole half-human half-mermaid thing was interesting. The history between Poseidon and Triton was
pretty interesting. The gifts that show up in royal bloodlines were really
interesting – even though we aren’t sure what the Triton gift is anymore. The overall concept of this story was pretty
good – the author just failed to execute in areas and put some of things you
shouldn’t ever have in your novel in other areas which is what hurts the rating
for me.
Also, I read this as an audio book. So far, this has been the best reader. She had a lot of different voices which
helped me keep track of who was actually talking. Though she still didn’t pull off a great man’s
voice, at least she was able to differentiate them all enough that you know who
was who. I applaud the reader for that
and it helped me keep track of the story better.
First, I hated the overuse of “Oh my sweet goodness!” –
something minor and small, I know. The
first time it was kind of funny. But the
sixth and seventh time I was annoyed. No
one talks like that and it just jarred me from the dialogue that was going
on. If the author had just left it at “Oh
my gosh” or “Oh my God”, the dialogue in those scenes would have flowed so much
better.
Second, the whole stalker thing was kind of just thrown in
there. At the end it kind of all made
sense, but it annoyed me that they didn’t “sense” the stalker right away. So it just seemed like it came out of
nowhere. And it didn’t even play a part
until right at the very end. If the
author was going to do this (which would have been fine in my book), she should
have had it come up a lot earlier in the story.
I also didn’t like how Emma’s mother pushed her to admit
that she and Galen were dating even though they weren’t. It was a really stupid part of the book
because it didn’t even become part of the story! It felt so forced and I hated it, and then I
really hated it when it didn’t even matter.
I’m not sure why the author chose to do that.
Emma got pretty annoying by the middle of the book as well.
I’m not sure why female main characters end up being annoying in the books
anymore. It’s so frustrating. How hard is it to write a likeable
character? Her obstinance was so
frustrating. If you’re learning about a
new world, you should probably listen to the people who are from that world and
are teaching you. UGH.
The cliffhanger. Okay.
There is a HUGE difference between wrapping up your story and leaving
with a cliffhanger and then just cutting your story off right in the
middle. This story was cut off right in
the middle. The author didn’t know how
to leave a cliffhanger but still leave the reader feeling like they have some
sort of closure to the book. This one
just cut off. I found myself with only
10 minutes left in the book wondering how so much was going to happen…and I was
right. It didn’t! She just ends it! Seriously?
Of course now that I’ve invested so much time in to the story, I need to
read the second one, but I can tell you right now that I won’t be buying it
myself after that ending. Basically this
author is writing one giant story and chopping it in thirds, as opposed to
writing 3 books with an arc that covers all three books.
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