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fanboyriot's review against another edition
emotional
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
A non-binary MC that just so happens to be mer?? Sign me up. I really liked so much about this book even if I have somewhat mixed feelings about how it ended. I easily fell in love with the characters, the humor, and all the merfolk stuff. It was really cute.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Cursing, Infidelity, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Car accident
Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Alcohol
sssssoup's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I’ve been looking forward to reading this book for over six months, but unfortunately, I found it to be a huge letdown. The premise was really interesting and it had so much potential, but for me, it ended up being incredibly mid.
Things I liked:
-The casual representation was really nice to see
-I thought the world building with the merfolk and their culture was interesting and pretty well done. I especially liked the stuff about gender
-I liked Crest’s exploration of gender presentation
-It was a pretty fun and quick read
-The portrayal of teenagers felt pretty realistic. Teenagers make a lot of stupid choices, as did the characters in this book (I myself am a teenager)
Things I didn’t like:
-Personally, I found all the mer-slang to be cringy and overused
-The extent of Crest’s confusion about human culture didn’t make sense to me. They supposedly took human culture classes for years, yet they didn’t know how to cross the street or open a door? Also, in one of the first chapters, it says that Crest has mer magic to help them understand human things if they get confused, but it’s only used one time and never mentioned again?
-I was uncomfortable with how much the teenaged characters talked about sex-related topics (I myself am a teenager and I thought it was weird). It’s not bad to have teenage characters who aren’t ashamed of being horny or anything, but I felt like Sean and Crest were often reduced to their sexual attraction and I found it took away from the other more important parts of their characters. I also didn’t like how their relationship was built so heavily on physicality and lust, yet they kept talking about how they were in love
-The pacing was also off in my opinion, especially toward the end. It felt like the author kept adding in more and more things just to add to the drama of the situations. I saw another reviewer who said that they should’ve focused in on a few things instead of having so many, and I’m inclined to agree
Overall, it was a fun, quick read that you don’t have to think too much about, but I was disappointed because I didn’t love it like I thought I would. I don’t hate it, but I definitely won’t be recommending it to anyone either.
Things I liked:
-The casual representation was really nice to see
-I thought the world building with the merfolk and their culture was interesting and pretty well done. I especially liked the stuff about gender
-I liked Crest’s exploration of gender presentation
-It was a pretty fun and quick read
-The portrayal of teenagers felt pretty realistic. Teenagers make a lot of stupid choices, as did the characters in this book (I myself am a teenager)
Things I didn’t like:
-Personally, I found all the mer-slang to be cringy and overused
-The extent of Crest’s confusion about human culture didn’t make sense to me. They supposedly took human culture classes for years, yet they didn’t know how to cross the street or open a door? Also, in one of the first chapters, it says that Crest has mer magic to help them understand human things if they get confused, but it’s only used one time and never mentioned again?
-I was uncomfortable with how much the teenaged characters talked about sex-related topics (I myself am a teenager and I thought it was weird). It’s not bad to have teenage characters who aren’t ashamed of being horny or anything, but I felt like Sean and Crest were often reduced to their sexual attraction and I found it took away from the other more important parts of their characters. I also didn’t like how their relationship was built so heavily on physicality and lust, yet they kept talking about how they were in love
-The pacing was also off in my opinion, especially toward the end. It felt like the author kept adding in more and more things just to add to the drama of the situations. I saw another reviewer who said that they should’ve focused in on a few things instead of having so many, and I’m inclined to agree
Overall, it was a fun, quick read that you don’t have to think too much about, but I was disappointed because I didn’t love it like I thought I would. I don’t hate it, but I definitely won’t be recommending it to anyone either.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Body shaming, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Vomit, Grief, and Alcohol
ezwolf's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Crest is a merperson about to take their Journey to the human world, in the next month they need to help a human out of good will in order to make the choice to stay a merperson or become human. If they choose to be selfish and not help anyone, they will be forced to be human forever.
I will start out by saying I really liked the way that the merpeople were not gendered and that the author took every chance to make every character queer in some way and there was no homophobia or purposeful misgendering. There was also some good attention brought to body positivity. It also didn't end quite like I expected it too which was a pleasant surprise.
But otherwise this book really played into every cliche trope and had some weird plot holes. Like that merpeople don't have a gender binary but that when they send their children to land their bodies are set to the human gender binary without any in put from the merperson. Crest even makes a comment about they didn't know why they'd been given this body. Crest also talked about how they were given "human lessons" but then didn't know how to cross a street or open doors or what phone apps were (but then was able to open and use YouTube fine on their own).
Also the amount of pop culture references was incredibly over the top (including the name Ross, which I thought was a coincidence and I just don't like the name because I don't like the character from FRIENDS, but more than likely Crest was given the name Ross as a reference since there is a reference to Chandler too).
Thank you to Net Galley for making this book available in exchange for an honest review!
I will start out by saying I really liked the way that the merpeople were not gendered and that the author took every chance to make every character queer in some way and there was no homophobia or purposeful misgendering. There was also some good attention brought to body positivity. It also didn't end quite like I expected it too which was a pleasant surprise.
But otherwise this book really played into every cliche trope and had some weird plot holes. Like that merpeople don't have a gender binary but that when they send their children to land their bodies are set to the human gender binary without any in put from the merperson. Crest even makes a comment about they didn't know why they'd been given this body. Crest also talked about how they were given "human lessons" but then didn't know how to cross a street or open doors or what phone apps were (but then was able to open and use YouTube fine on their own).
Also the amount of pop culture references was incredibly over the top (including the name Ross, which I thought was a coincidence and I just don't like the name because I don't like the character from FRIENDS, but more than likely Crest was given the name Ross as a reference since there is a reference to Chandler too).
Thank you to Net Galley for making this book available in exchange for an honest review!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity and Sexual content
Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Mental illness, and Sexual assault
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