Review: Delightful and Engaging Young Adult Mermaid Story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 27, 2012
Read from February 23 to 26, 2012Marina has traveled the world with her father, but when he is headed to Afghanistan he refuses to allow her to join him like usual. Instead, she must spend her senior year with her aunt and cousin and attend public school for the first time in her life. She leaves behind San Fransisco, and heads to Atpos, and much smaller town by the sea. Is drawn to the water, and quickly sees hauntingly familiar eyes in the water, almost as familiar with her own reflection. Could it have been a scuba diver or a surfer playing tricks? High School is hard enough without having already humiliated herself in front of the hottest surfer at school, let alone worry about mythological creatures....Overall, I REALLY enjoyed this book. I even stayed up late the final night I was reading just to find out what happened. The ending seemingly buttoned up a little more quickly than I would have liked. Foreshadowing to the sequel was good, almost too good- I was expecting a few "revelations" during the first book that did not come to pass. Sweet and innocent, but does not suffer, in my opinion, from the "love at first sight" syndrome; the story allowed time for the romance to begin and grow at a normal pace. As it is a YA story, don't go into this expecting hot and heavy romantic action; but there is still romance aplenty. This is a book you can give to a teen without worry of inappropriate or too adult themes.I liked the variety of characters. Just because it had surfers and on a beach, they were not all blonde, ripped magazine cover teenagers. The main character was brunette, there was even a 'plumper' redhead friend... there was not an over-use of stereotypical, cookie-cutter characters. I really appreciated the diversity.I would definitely recommend this to anyone that enjoys YA, likes a mermaid story, or even just paranormal/urban fantasy in general. It was a charming book definitely worth reading, and I will most definitely look at getting the sequel see how it continues...