Author; Sarah Henning
Publisher; Katherine Tegen Books
Genres; YA fantasy
Pages; 368
Rating; 2.5/5 stars
Synopsis:
“Everyone knows what happens in the end. A mermaid, a prince, a true love’s kiss. But before that young siren’s tale, there were three friends. One feared, one royal, and one already dead.
Ever since her best friend, Anna, drowned, Evie has been an outcast in her small fishing town. A freak. A curse. A witch.
A girl with an uncanny resemblance to Anna appears offshore and, though the girl denies it, Evie is convinced that her best friend actually survived. That her own magic wasn’t so powerless after all. And, as the two girls catch the eyes—and hearts—of two charming princes, Evie believes that she might finally have a chance at her own happily ever after.
But her new friend has secrets of her own. She can’t stay in Havnestad, or on two legs, unless Evie finds a way to help her. Now Evie will do anything to save her friend’s humanity, along with her prince’s heart—harnessing the power of her magic, her ocean, and her love until she discovers, too late, the truth of her bargain.”
Don’t let the pretty cover fool you, this book is terrible. There are so many things in this story that made me want to chuck the book across the room. It lacked character, plot, romance, magic, world building and just about ANYTHING that a decent book would have. It was annoying and eye roll worthy the entire time through. The only thing that kept this book in some good graces for me was the heartbreaking ending.
This book follows four main characters; Iker, Nik, Evie and Annamette. Yet somehow all of these characters lack development, motive and aren’t realistic. Iker had the personality of a piece of paper and he lacked character development or depth. I knew noting about him except that he liked boats. Nik was a little better, I would upgrade him to the title of “cardboard character”. He also lacked character development and depth as his cousin. I wish he had gotten more time in the spotlight since I think he could have been a pretty interesting character. Evie, the main character, was frail with a lack of direction. She was a doll being forced around be a storyline that I wouldn’t even call a plot. Then there was the whole mess of Annamette. She was evil? I think? Her character was a huge mess of traits that really didn’t add up and I had a hard time believing that the other three characters liked her. The chemistry between all four of them was weird and felt so in-genuine that it hurts.
Along with the rough characters was the lack of plot. Telling people this book is character driven even feels like a lie. THERE WAS NO PLOT. AT ALL. Every chapter was just the characters talking or doing something random that really didn’t contribute anything to the story. I mean, I guess I could see that the author may have been going for character bonding for most of the story but that just feels like a lie too. The story had no direction and was written like a terrible fan fiction that was composed of pure fluff. Nothing really went anywhere until the author pulled a plot twist esc ending that actually had plot during the last 50ish pages.
Speaking of the ending, somehow it got to me? Like I was not expecting to care at all about these characters but when everything changed at the end I was actually really shocked and upset. I just wasn’t expecting anything to happen! I mean, dull story most of the way through and suddenly a ton of action is thrown in and my heart actually hurt over these mediocre characters.
Along with the mediocre characters of course were poorly written romances that made me want to scream a fair bit. The forced romance between Evie & Iker was so uncomfortable and had no chemistry. Their interactions were so stiff and it felt like Iker didn’t care about anything really, including Evie. Then the exact same situation was happening with Annamette & Nick and it just made me want to scream. The romances were poorly written and so unnecessary to the story.
The world and magic building in this story didn’t exist. I had no concept of how the world worked, how the magic system worked or anything. Was it genetic? Was it random? Were there more than mermaids and witches? What was outside of their country? Outside of their city? I have no idea and it bothers me so much! This world felt as flat as it’s characters and it was pathetic.
This book was flat out disappointing and a waste of time. It won’t hook you from the beginning, you won’t like the characters and you’ll be bored out of your mind for the most part. The only part of this book that gave it any saving grace was the plot twist ending which was interesting, but not enough to save the overall tragedy that was this book.
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