Review: PetRead
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 3, 2012
(this review is also posted at goodreads.) The pragmatic first half of this book is rife with raw emotions. The main characters have been well presented that I felt I could relate with them right from the very moment they were introduced. Alana is thrown into a somber world after her parents' death. She was forced to live with cruel foster parents, and left to care for the other younger foster children. The aggression they fearfully endure kept me quite agitated. I was so immersed in their miserable world that I almost forgot there is a fantastical aspect to this story--- the other half of it, which takes the storyline to a very sharp, totally unrelated turn. Not that it's bad. But the author is doing so good telling a realistic tale that I would not have minded for the storyline to finish as realistic as it had started.Anyway, another life-altering moment for Alana is when she finds a dying merman by the river while she was out in the woods. She brings Jonas home to restore him to health. Her foster brother Roman was righteously suspicious of the creature she brought home, especially when Jonas offers Alana a tempting proposal that appears to be her way out of the deepening mess she is facing while with her foster parents. Roman realizes his love for Alana is not enough to keep her from running away from them.... from him. Although Jonas is not forcing Alana, her choice is not at all free from the merman's spell. Smitten by the merman and with nothing to loose, she agrees to go back to Jonas' world and pretend to be the lost princess, never mind the risk of discovery and grave punishment.May I please call on a more vigorous effort for proofreading, though, because I want to read more of the story without stumbling too much on obviously overlooked errors in grammar and spelling. I am very interested to know how Alana and Jonas will manage with their deception. Just thinking about it makes me nervous. And what is Roman going to do with the knowledge of Alana in a different world? Plus, will the foster kids be alright? Will the foster parents get what they deserve and be locked up behind bars? Looking forward to the answers.(less)