Review: The obsession was not my cup of tea
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 24, 2012
The Lure of Shapinsay is about the love between a selkie and a human. I've never read a selkie story before so this one interested me from the beginning. It was hard to get into at first because of some of the Scottish language and the nature of the selkies, but once I got over that part it became much easier to understand the book.Krista Holle truly brought the world alive in this book. While reading, I can imagine that I'm there at the island with salty wind blowing over me as I look over the ocean. I saw the selkies sunbathing on the rocks just like Kait did. There were also traditions of the time that made this story and its setting feel so much more real.However, the reason for such a low rating is that I really couldn't get into the love story. Kait is bewitched by the selkie, Eamon. She became obsessive and totally couldn't function without Eamon. I just don't see how this could be love. Every time she spouted that she loved Eamon, I wanted to shake and scream at her! She couldn't trust Eamon even after he gave her such a priceless gift and this distrust and insecurity of hers really made the love story unbearable.On Eamon's side, it was a little better. His reason for being intrigued was at least believable. His selkie nature was kind of hard to understand and relate too. I'm used to doing everything to stay with the one you love kind of thing, while he easily gave that up due to his pride and very nature, so I couldn't understand him very well. Due to his age, he was kind of immature and childish and overly aggressive. There was too much male posturing on his side without him actually doing much.Overall, I would recommend this book if you're looking for something different. I would classify it for older teens because there is sex ("humping") involved, but not it's not explicit. It has pretty good reviews on Goodreads, but because how the love story played out, it just wasn't for me.