Review: An interesting twist on the typical mermaid story.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 8, 2014
I've been eager to read a mermaid book for a while - and while the waterbreathers aren't technically mermaids (no tails and they don't live solely underwater), this book pretty much hit the spot.The negatives:Some grammatical errors.The book could have used a good edit - the errors were not egregious, but they were definitely noticeable.A bit of a slow start.I felt like the beginning of the book was a little bit slow. There were quite a few mysteries set up - about who Caris' mom really is and what happened to Noah's brother - but it took till about 40% before you got any real answers. The book was still enjoyable before that, but it occasionally felt a bit slow.What I loved:The waterbreathers.I thought that James did a great job of creating the world of the waterbreathers. It was definitely different from what I was expecting - I thought that they were going to be something along the lines of mermaids, but they really weren't. They're more like people who can breathe underwater and have some other powers - but they live in regular society, not underwater. A lot of the book had to do with the relations between the waterbreathers and the regular humans. Many of the humans knew about the waterbreathers, and not all of them were thrilled about it.Complex family relationships.The family relationships in this book were complicated, to say the least. Caris grew up without her mother and her father has never told her anything about her. There are so many mysteries surrounding Caris and her family (and it just gets more and more complicated). Then there's Noah's family - his father was dead and his brother was missing - presumed dead. These complex family relationships really added to the book.Caris and Noah.I was worried at first that the connection between Caris and Noah was going to turn into insta-love, but luckily it didn't work out that way. Instead their romance moved at a very reasonable, slow pace, which I definitely appreciated. Meanwhile, the connection between them was strong, and I definitely found myself rooting for them.Waterborn was a great paranormal romance. While the book didn't end on a cliffhanger, I think there's plenty more of this story to tell and I hope there will be another book to follow up. I give it 4/5 stars.