Review: A Thrilling Young Adult Read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 28, 2011
RECEIVED FROM: The Author For Review***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***Marina Vanderpool is the half human, half mermaid child of a mermaid and a Nobel prize winning scientist.  She lives a life that most people only dream of and has four years to decide whether she wants to be a child of the land or the sea.  Though she's made her choice to stay with her human family before, she can't deny that the sea and her mermaid sisters call to her.  Marina becomes like a rope in an emotional tug of war between her sea siren sisters and her human friends and family.  Neither wants to share her or give her up and she isn't willing to turn her back on either.  When her secret is exposed during a terrible accident everyone she cares about is threatened.  Will she be able to protect them all? Can she even protect herself?Anderson makes a brilliant return in the second story in her Marina's Tales series.  Her characters start to really take shape in this story.  Marina has an addictive personality, she's slightly self centered and on the dishonest side.  Evan is clingy and though protective definite leaning toward controlling in his need to protect her and keep her.  Aunt Evie is manipulative.  Cruz, is WAY self centered, it's almost like he thinks the world revolves around him.  Meghan get's a bossy side.  Now if you've read my review from yesterday you'll actually understand how this is an EXCELLENT development in Derrolyn Anderson's work.  In the first novel her characters were just too perfect to feel real.  In this tale she provides them with flaws, makes them human for the reader allowing the reader to become a little more attached to each character through their flaws.In this tale she also begins to reveal a little more of what the mermaids' abilities really are.  The revelation of their abilities really puts a nice explanation on why every character's life in this novel seems so perfect.  It's not just chance, it's magic.  Of course, now I need to half mermaid to be my friend so I can lead that kind of life.  In The Moon and The Tide Anderson takes the flaws from her first novel and puts a couple of explanations on them to make them seem more realistic because of the mermaid magic woven into the story.  She also explains that Marina's lavish lifestyle was created by design to make her immune to persuasion in the form of bribery.  She was raised to not value wealth so that she could never be manipulated by wealth.  I don't know if this spin and explanation were initially planned by the author when she plotted out the series or a clever way to clean up constructive reviews from her first work right after it was published, however what she's done in this novel really works.She did have a couple of hard to believe scenes, like one where Marina and Lorelei take out some burly bad guys, which did lower my rating a tad.  Overall though it was a fast paced and well told story that I really enjoyed reading.She also has a wonderful way of addressing the issues of sex with teens, she doesn't deny that the idea appeals to them, that they're tempted and close to crossing that line.  However she also doesn't cross that line with teen readers and condoning premarital teenage sex.  I'm not sure if she plans to in future novels, but so far she's keeping the book right where it should be for teen readers without making the teens seem like they're oblivious to hormones.Anderson is not a writer to be missed in the young adult fantasy genre. The Moon and Tide is a wonderful tale of mermaids, love and adventure, and for the price it would be a serious mistake to pass over this series.