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A review by starsenshib
The Little Selkie by K.M. Shea
4.0
I have read all (10, all that are out currently: although I assume she's writing more than 10 after that ending...) of the books in this series. (what, I had a slow week...)
I'm only going to review this one because it's my favourite, but I'll give you a rundown of the entire series here because. I can't be bothered to be quite honest.
3.5/5
Tl;dr a good, light read with funny characters, but nothing to write home about.
This book is fun. It's a take on the little mermaid that has enough elements of the original that you won't be terribly surprised, but makes lots of changes that make it interesting. Like, the princess has a way to communicate with others (novel). The reason this is my favourite book of the series is because of the protagonist, Dylan. Despite her unfortunate name, she's funny and unique as a ya heroine. Even though i was disappointed when her "exotic looks" turned out to be...orange hair and blue-green eyes, she's still interesting and fun, possessing great height and an insatiable appetite, as well as a disdain for mind games of any kind. some of the book's best parts are her shutting down what is meant to be a devastating insult, simply by not caring. It's nice to have an example of someone who is assured enough to ignore catty remarks.
The prince was likable as well, but not without flaws, which was good. He was a genuinely good person, which is the only love interest worth a hill of beans. Love interests who aren't complete piles of trash are sadly absent in ya fiction so I commend the author for this. The prince wasn't quite so interesting as Dylan though, so we'll leave it at that.
The book also has the best side characters of any of the books, in Dooley and Cagney (why the names, though? why??) and they are a delight, and the reason this book stands out from the others.
Now for cons: after all, I only gave the story 3.5 stars.
This author does a peculiar thing where she gives the characters certain traits and then plays those up the entire time. I'm not saying that her characters are necessarily flat, but they definitely aren't deep either. They're somewhere in the middle, which is what keeps this story from really shining. Perhaps it's the brevity of the books or the simplicity of the plots, but it's easy to assign one or two traits to each character, especially the princes in the series. "Noble" could be one, or "good" even. The girls are a little more varied (not in appearance LOL) but still seem a bit one-dimensional to me.
This book is a good read for anyone who enjoys fairy tale retellings, honestly. I think most people would enjoy it on some level, and it isn't necessary to have read the others (though there is some character overlap and a v confusing overarching plot that is very vaguely mentioned throughout the books)
A rundown of the rest of the books, for people who are interested in them:
These books are light, age-appropriate romance stories with really boring covers. They're nice for younger teen girls, and I deeply appreciated that they were appropriate, I did. It has the kissing scenes and the descriptions of feelings when you see your love that you would expect in a book such as this. Don't be surprised.
A lot of the protagonists (male and female) are blonde and have striking blue eyes. It's tiresome. As a random internet quote says, Brown eyes are just brown eyes...until you love someone with brown eyes. And I love brown eyes, so give brown eyes a chance. poor things. Frankly I'm tired of blue eyes. There's nothing wrong with them but like most of the population of the world has brown eyes so. It's a little unrealistic. Just saying.
The characters were interesting for the most part, the girls definitely more than their prince counterparts. This author does well with side characters and interesting personality quirks.
The books didn't get as repetitive as I was afraid of, although there was some repetition of course; no author can escape it, especially when writing ten books. Each book had a little something different to add, and a thread of a plot that goes all the way through the series (Woefully underdeveloped, in my opinion). They really are hit and miss, and I'll go through which are my favourites and which...aren't.
The first book, a Beauty and the beast retelling, was just very strange. Something about it was off to me and it's a wonder that I kept reading. the romance was not to my liking, and the fact that the prince basically looked like a giant cat was really weird.
The second book, The Wild Swans, was The Worst. Stay away if you can. The author was trying to be unique and interesting by doing a choose your own adventure thing at the end, where you can choose who the heroine ends up with. The problem with this is that in doing so, she takes the romance out of the rest of the book so I didn't feel right choosing either of the boys. Add that to the fact that these characters show up in other books, and it's just...awkward. It's very awkward and strange. I don't fault her for trying this but...let's not do it ever again. (A stand-alone book would have been a bit better of a choice for this interesting experiment)
The third book, cinderella and the colonel, was also strange and I didn't like it especially well. Cinderella is a fine character, and she's trying to save her estate, the only estate left in her entire country, from basically being annexed into another country that has just conquered them. She falls in love with the prince of the conquering country, and we're supposed to feel okay about the mass slaughter done to her people by his I guess IDK. It's a wonder I kept reading these books actually. Sit tight, they get better.
Rumpelstiltskin was the second best book in the series, after the little selkie (in my opinion). I adored Rumpelstiltskin, and Gemma's somber attitude was a nice change from the generally spunky heroines in this series. She has good chemistry with rumpelstiltskin. It also had good side characters. It addressed the question I always had with the story which is, why would the girl want to marry the man who told her he would kill her if she didn't spin straw into gold? Well worth a read.
Puss in Boots was cute and had a talking cat. This book gets a 3. Worth a read, but nothing spectacularly special. Also, girls who view their beauty as a curse - v tiresome. Like, disfigure yourself? splatter yourself with mud. Don't bathe. There are options.
Swan lake - The girl had dirty dishwater blonde hair that was "like corn silk" at the tips which just made me think she had really frayed, frizzy hairtips. That's the biggest standout in this book, except the antagonist who was genuinely interesting and of course died.
Sleeping beauty - This one annoyed me because certain characters seemed really selfish. The girl herself had an interesting enough character but ugh the rest of the book. I don't want to spoil it, but this book was probably the biggest letdown in terms of story.
The Frog Prince - ok. It was one where the prince is a cad with a heart of gold, and turns into a better person at the end because of love. Sure, whatever. It's also the book where the most progress is made concerning the overarching plot of the series, which had basically been ignored up to this point.
The twelve dancing princesses is the last I've read, and what I thought was going to be the conclusion of the series until I read the last 10 pages. If you already like this series, you'll like this book. The protagonists are blonde with blue eyes and gorgeous and love each other and there's nothing offensive about it, but nothing particularly interesting either
OH WAIT I AM MAD THAT THE PRINCESS BRITTANY DECIDES TO GET TOGETHER WITH GOOD FOR NOTHING ROY THAT IS GARBAGE AND I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT HAPPENED he is not in the same plane of existence as her please leave roy.
That's probably all I have to say about these books. I appreciate the fact that people are still retelling fairy tales. This particular series is written for a younger audience than I. I still had fun reading them. Thank you and goodnight.
I'm only going to review this one because it's my favourite, but I'll give you a rundown of the entire series here because. I can't be bothered to be quite honest.
3.5/5
Tl;dr a good, light read with funny characters, but nothing to write home about.
This book is fun. It's a take on the little mermaid that has enough elements of the original that you won't be terribly surprised, but makes lots of changes that make it interesting. Like, the princess has a way to communicate with others (novel). The reason this is my favourite book of the series is because of the protagonist, Dylan. Despite her unfortunate name, she's funny and unique as a ya heroine. Even though i was disappointed when her "exotic looks" turned out to be...orange hair and blue-green eyes, she's still interesting and fun, possessing great height and an insatiable appetite, as well as a disdain for mind games of any kind. some of the book's best parts are her shutting down what is meant to be a devastating insult, simply by not caring. It's nice to have an example of someone who is assured enough to ignore catty remarks.
The prince was likable as well, but not without flaws, which was good. He was a genuinely good person, which is the only love interest worth a hill of beans. Love interests who aren't complete piles of trash are sadly absent in ya fiction so I commend the author for this. The prince wasn't quite so interesting as Dylan though, so we'll leave it at that.
The book also has the best side characters of any of the books, in Dooley and Cagney (why the names, though? why??) and they are a delight, and the reason this book stands out from the others.
Now for cons: after all, I only gave the story 3.5 stars.
This author does a peculiar thing where she gives the characters certain traits and then plays those up the entire time. I'm not saying that her characters are necessarily flat, but they definitely aren't deep either. They're somewhere in the middle, which is what keeps this story from really shining. Perhaps it's the brevity of the books or the simplicity of the plots, but it's easy to assign one or two traits to each character, especially the princes in the series. "Noble" could be one, or "good" even. The girls are a little more varied (not in appearance LOL) but still seem a bit one-dimensional to me.
This book is a good read for anyone who enjoys fairy tale retellings, honestly. I think most people would enjoy it on some level, and it isn't necessary to have read the others (though there is some character overlap and a v confusing overarching plot that is very vaguely mentioned throughout the books)
A rundown of the rest of the books, for people who are interested in them:
These books are light, age-appropriate romance stories with really boring covers. They're nice for younger teen girls, and I deeply appreciated that they were appropriate, I did. It has the kissing scenes and the descriptions of feelings when you see your love that you would expect in a book such as this. Don't be surprised.
A lot of the protagonists (male and female) are blonde and have striking blue eyes. It's tiresome. As a random internet quote says, Brown eyes are just brown eyes...until you love someone with brown eyes. And I love brown eyes, so give brown eyes a chance. poor things. Frankly I'm tired of blue eyes. There's nothing wrong with them but like most of the population of the world has brown eyes so. It's a little unrealistic. Just saying.
The characters were interesting for the most part, the girls definitely more than their prince counterparts. This author does well with side characters and interesting personality quirks.
The books didn't get as repetitive as I was afraid of, although there was some repetition of course; no author can escape it, especially when writing ten books. Each book had a little something different to add, and a thread of a plot that goes all the way through the series (Woefully underdeveloped, in my opinion). They really are hit and miss, and I'll go through which are my favourites and which...aren't.
The first book, a Beauty and the beast retelling, was just very strange. Something about it was off to me and it's a wonder that I kept reading. the romance was not to my liking, and the fact that the prince basically looked like a giant cat was really weird.
The second book, The Wild Swans, was The Worst. Stay away if you can. The author was trying to be unique and interesting by doing a choose your own adventure thing at the end, where you can choose who the heroine ends up with. The problem with this is that in doing so, she takes the romance out of the rest of the book so I didn't feel right choosing either of the boys. Add that to the fact that these characters show up in other books, and it's just...awkward. It's very awkward and strange. I don't fault her for trying this but...let's not do it ever again. (A stand-alone book would have been a bit better of a choice for this interesting experiment)
The third book, cinderella and the colonel, was also strange and I didn't like it especially well. Cinderella is a fine character, and she's trying to save her estate, the only estate left in her entire country, from basically being annexed into another country that has just conquered them. She falls in love with the prince of the conquering country, and we're supposed to feel okay about the mass slaughter done to her people by his I guess IDK. It's a wonder I kept reading these books actually. Sit tight, they get better.
Rumpelstiltskin was the second best book in the series, after the little selkie (in my opinion). I adored Rumpelstiltskin, and Gemma's somber attitude was a nice change from the generally spunky heroines in this series. She has good chemistry with rumpelstiltskin. It also had good side characters. It addressed the question I always had with the story which is, why would the girl want to marry the man who told her he would kill her if she didn't spin straw into gold? Well worth a read.
Puss in Boots was cute and had a talking cat. This book gets a 3. Worth a read, but nothing spectacularly special. Also, girls who view their beauty as a curse - v tiresome. Like, disfigure yourself? splatter yourself with mud. Don't bathe. There are options.
Swan lake - The girl had dirty dishwater blonde hair that was "like corn silk" at the tips which just made me think she had really frayed, frizzy hairtips. That's the biggest standout in this book, except the antagonist who was genuinely interesting and of course died.
Sleeping beauty - This one annoyed me because certain characters seemed really selfish. The girl herself had an interesting enough character but ugh the rest of the book. I don't want to spoil it, but this book was probably the biggest letdown in terms of story.
The Frog Prince - ok. It was one where the prince is a cad with a heart of gold, and turns into a better person at the end because of love. Sure, whatever. It's also the book where the most progress is made concerning the overarching plot of the series, which had basically been ignored up to this point.
The twelve dancing princesses is the last I've read, and what I thought was going to be the conclusion of the series until I read the last 10 pages. If you already like this series, you'll like this book. The protagonists are blonde with blue eyes and gorgeous and love each other and there's nothing offensive about it, but nothing particularly interesting either
OH WAIT I AM MAD THAT THE PRINCESS BRITTANY DECIDES TO GET TOGETHER WITH GOOD FOR NOTHING ROY THAT IS GARBAGE AND I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT HAPPENED he is not in the same plane of existence as her please leave roy.
That's probably all I have to say about these books. I appreciate the fact that people are still retelling fairy tales. This particular series is written for a younger audience than I. I still had fun reading them. Thank you and goodnight.