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2.82 AVERAGE
2.82 AVERAGE
tess_mondi's review against another edition
1.0
This book is more infuriating, than entertaining.
The start of the book almost made me drop it instantly. So fast paced, it felt rushed, paired with a chaotic and odd writing style was off putting. And hell there is a lot of unnecessary info dumping.
The main character also can’t speak the language of the other characters, so the whole dialogue is completely one sided and incredibly annoying. Not only that, but it also feels stiff, awkward, unnatural and is as chaotic as the story itself. In all honesty, the book has the weirdest one pages long, one-sided ramblings of characters. And the female main character can start understanding the language way too soon.
The story often lacks logic and for the love of god, I cannot tell you what age this is supposed to be set in. Characters behave like it’s the age of Columbus. No sex before marriage, weird superstitions about women on ships and very very old and sexiest way of treating women. It would make perfect sense, if it were the time of British colonies and exploring the seas during columbus days. But they use objects fitting at least the 1900s if not even the 2000s. They have electric torches, marmite, a motorcycle mentioned in the synopsis of a later book and speak of places that just feel modern, but they dress like columbus age. It does not fit, like at all.
And do not get me started on the disrespect towards women. It feels like every man in this book is either obsessed with raping the female main character or getting into her pants. And every sexual joke and comment made me cringe so hard! Especially bad is Charlie, because he is supposed to be this sweet, innocent young lad experiencing his first love. The main character calls him sweet boy like all the time. But god is he annoying and his cute crush is the most uncomfortable thing i have ever read.
Christ the men in this book even turn the female main character into an f’ing sex trophy to be won in a boxing match. Not even the male main character can get it right. Girl just indisputable proved she needs no man to protect her and can probably beat every man on board, if she needs to and the male main character yells at her, that she could have been hurt and what was she thinking. Supposed to sound protective and sweet, sounded disrespectful and degrading. And he made it worse by literally telling her, that she should bandage him up, because all women know how to bandage, cause they are naturally born nursers and all. Ugh!!!!
You don’t wanna know how often I thought ugh in this book.
Also their flirting is so awkward and weird and their tension isn’t good. The male main character says so many cringe ‘loving’ things, always being glad she doesn’t understand what he just told her. The worst!
And didn’t i just say she indisputable proved she could beat everyone on board. Author shall proceed to ignore this, get her hurt like the ‘weak woman’ she is instead and then remember, oh yeah, she’s dangerous and deadly, because mermaid. Welp too late, poor girl is already so hurt, boy why did Maria not remember she could fight before she got hurt so badly. She literally had the skill to prevent getting injured, she proved she could, but she didn’t because plot!
The main character falls in love way too soon, that mixed with her grief over her lost partner = awkward and the next book is hinted at to be the same story again with different characters. Girl found floating in the sea, gets rescued and proceeds to head to the same land, grieving her lover. Literally nothing changed from the start of this book. Other than that maybe this time the men ‘might’ be nice, shocker! Or they couldn’t, who knows.
The only thing good in this book is the cultural differences between the mermaid and the humans, end of story.
I do not know why I read the whole thing to begin with. I had enough reason to dnf it after reading the first two pages! But it was short and had a mermaid on the cover. Perfect waste of my time, don’t recommend to anyone.
The start of the book almost made me drop it instantly. So fast paced, it felt rushed, paired with a chaotic and odd writing style was off putting. And hell there is a lot of unnecessary info dumping.
The main character also can’t speak the language of the other characters, so the whole dialogue is completely one sided and incredibly annoying. Not only that, but it also feels stiff, awkward, unnatural and is as chaotic as the story itself. In all honesty, the book has the weirdest one pages long, one-sided ramblings of characters. And the female main character can start understanding the language way too soon.
The story often lacks logic and for the love of god, I cannot tell you what age this is supposed to be set in. Characters behave like it’s the age of Columbus. No sex before marriage, weird superstitions about women on ships and very very old and sexiest way of treating women. It would make perfect sense, if it were the time of British colonies and exploring the seas during columbus days. But they use objects fitting at least the 1900s if not even the 2000s. They have electric torches, marmite, a motorcycle mentioned in the synopsis of a later book and speak of places that just feel modern, but they dress like columbus age. It does not fit, like at all.
And do not get me started on the disrespect towards women. It feels like every man in this book is either obsessed with raping the female main character or getting into her pants. And every sexual joke and comment made me cringe so hard! Especially bad is Charlie, because he is supposed to be this sweet, innocent young lad experiencing his first love. The main character calls him sweet boy like all the time. But god is he annoying and his cute crush is the most uncomfortable thing i have ever read.
Christ the men in this book even turn the female main character into an f’ing sex trophy to be won in a boxing match. Not even the male main character can get it right. Girl just indisputable proved she needs no man to protect her and can probably beat every man on board, if she needs to and the male main character yells at her, that she could have been hurt and what was she thinking. Supposed to sound protective and sweet, sounded disrespectful and degrading. And he made it worse by literally telling her, that she should bandage him up, because all women know how to bandage, cause they are naturally born nursers and all. Ugh!!!!
You don’t wanna know how often I thought ugh in this book.
Also their flirting is so awkward and weird and their tension isn’t good. The male main character says so many cringe ‘loving’ things, always being glad she doesn’t understand what he just told her. The worst!
And didn’t i just say she indisputable proved she could beat everyone on board. Author shall proceed to ignore this, get her hurt like the ‘weak woman’ she is instead and then remember, oh yeah, she’s dangerous and deadly, because mermaid. Welp too late, poor girl is already so hurt, boy why did Maria not remember she could fight before she got hurt so badly. She literally had the skill to prevent getting injured, she proved she could, but she didn’t because plot!
The main character falls in love way too soon, that mixed with her grief over her lost partner = awkward and the next book is hinted at to be the same story again with different characters. Girl found floating in the sea, gets rescued and proceeds to head to the same land, grieving her lover. Literally nothing changed from the start of this book. Other than that maybe this time the men ‘might’ be nice, shocker! Or they couldn’t, who knows.
The only thing good in this book is the cultural differences between the mermaid and the humans, end of story.
I do not know why I read the whole thing to begin with. I had enough reason to dnf it after reading the first two pages! But it was short and had a mermaid on the cover. Perfect waste of my time, don’t recommend to anyone.
katieb94's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
With it being put as a Little Mermiad retelling, I went into this book expecting mermaids and sirens, and was disappointed that we only got that content at the end! I was waiting the entire book for her fin!
The story follows Maria, a siren banished from her home, rescued by a sailor and taken aboard a ship.
The other sailors freak out as they think she’ll bring bad luck apart from two, Charlie, an apprentice with a bit of a crush on her, and William, a Scottish sailor that she instantly falls for- and we see their romance develop throughout the book.
However, yes there is a steamy scene but it’s instantly followed by our MC raping her love interest. He’s asleep, he can’t consent, that’s rape. There’s no pint glossing over it in the name of romantacy.
The writing style wasn’t great and I found this really hard to read but the ending was dramatic and is the reason for the extra half star!
As much as I am curious about the rest of the series I know I won’t be continuing it.
2.5/5 stars.
However, at least it ticks of one of my popsugar challenges!
The story follows Maria, a siren banished from her home, rescued by a sailor and taken aboard a ship.
The other sailors freak out as they think she’ll bring bad luck apart from two, Charlie, an apprentice with a bit of a crush on her, and William, a Scottish sailor that she instantly falls for- and we see their romance develop throughout the book.
However, yes there is a steamy scene but it’s instantly followed by our MC raping her love interest. He’s asleep, he can’t consent, that’s rape. There’s no pint glossing over it in the name of romantacy.
The writing style wasn’t great and I found this really hard to read but the ending was dramatic and is the reason for the extra half star!
As much as I am curious about the rest of the series I know I won’t be continuing it.
2.5/5 stars.
However, at least it ticks of one of my popsugar challenges!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, and Murder
Minor: Animal death and Alcohol
xoxounityoxox's review
3.5
This had some good parts and some things were funny, but we tiptoed around the colonialism way more than I would have expected for a book that boosts the fmc up. I also dislike the ending, very unsatisfying. I’m sure it will come back around in a later book, but still.
posmdoc's review against another edition
4.0
A Siren Scorned...
This is my first go with a Little Mermaid retelling, and I did enjoy it, but it was definitely not the happily ever after we are used to from the beloved red-head version...
Maria is a stubborn, passionate, vindictive, powerful Siren, and the use of her song is highlighted several times throughout the tale which is really cool. She is exiled from her kingdom/home, and ends up found by a group of sailors on a cargo ship where she meets the courteous, handsome, and kind William McGregor, and a few men who make venomous snakes look like great cuddle buddies. While falling in love with William, she seeks to get revenge on the other men who plot to hurt her, in the most sirenish of ways.
My main concern with the story is that they mention her past love that was related to her exile multiple times, but they never really go into details, so it doesn't really make sense why things happened the way they did. Hopefully that will be cleared up further along into the series.
There is some delightful spice between Maria and William (a couple of pages of one detailed incident, and lots of longing/lust and mention of her "womanly attributes"), so be warned of that if that isn't your thing.
This is my first go with a Little Mermaid retelling, and I did enjoy it, but it was definitely not the happily ever after we are used to from the beloved red-head version...
Maria is a stubborn, passionate, vindictive, powerful Siren, and the use of her song is highlighted several times throughout the tale which is really cool. She is exiled from her kingdom/home, and ends up found by a group of sailors on a cargo ship where she meets the courteous, handsome, and kind William McGregor, and a few men who make venomous snakes look like great cuddle buddies. While falling in love with William, she seeks to get revenge on the other men who plot to hurt her, in the most sirenish of ways.
My main concern with the story is that they mention her past love that was related to her exile multiple times, but they never really go into details, so it doesn't really make sense why things happened the way they did. Hopefully that will be cleared up further along into the series.
There is some delightful spice between Maria and William (a couple of pages of one detailed incident, and lots of longing/lust and mention of her "womanly attributes"), so be warned of that if that isn't your thing.
ck_merlyn's review against another edition
4.0
Brilliant, buried the lead though!
Quick note - the last three chapters have been somehow duplicated.
This book is a first-in-series, & ends in something of a cliffhanger - though not the thoroughly rude kind that makes you want to scream.
It is difficult to work out how much the leading lass understands of her situation, as she’s not got a good understanding of the language you’re reading in. We end up with a strange situation where you, the reader, know more about the protagonist’s situation than the protagonist does.
The amount that Maria keeps under wraps gives her plenty of room to surprise you, though.
I’m definitely keen to read more of this!
Quick note - the last three chapters have been somehow duplicated.
This book is a first-in-series, & ends in something of a cliffhanger - though not the thoroughly rude kind that makes you want to scream.
It is difficult to work out how much the leading lass understands of her situation, as she’s not got a good understanding of the language you’re reading in. We end up with a strange situation where you, the reader, know more about the protagonist’s situation than the protagonist does.
The amount that Maria keeps under wraps gives her plenty of room to surprise you, though.
I’m definitely keen to read more of this!
passionatelycurious's review against another edition
3.0
A very quick read with a lot going on. I didn't hate the story, but I think my problem with it personally is that it was so short that there really wasn't much story to it. The writing was fine, the characters were interesting, but I think it could have easily been the first third of a full novel rather than the first in a series. I'll probably read the second one to see where the story continues, but if it's only another hundred pages, I'll probably pass on the series. I would have given it a 4/5 if there was just more to it.
appurusakura's review against another edition
DNF at 10%
The writing makes my brain hurt. Big no from me
The writing makes my brain hurt. Big no from me