I don’t read many books that I would rate 1 star these days. I seem to have mastered my preferences and hit a stride of excellent books – or at least mostly readable books.
Admittedly I only made it fifty-six pages into this book before I threw my hands up in disgust and tossed a pillow at the wall – so I suggest you take that into account when deciding whether to buy this book.
Why did I stop reading?
First reason:
The death of a token character
We didn’t know her long enough, but I’m pretty sure she could play base.
Right off a POC character is killed and whilst that would be annoying in its own right, since killing off POC characters is a frustrating cliche in books, TV shows and films, this was even more annoying. Firstly because her description was extremely stereotypical – to the point that she was less of a character and more of a caricature. Perhaps even worse and more degrading is that there was no real lament to her death. It was used as a story progression so that the male protagonist could wax lyrical about how beautiful and brave the female protagonist for trying to save the dying POC character. I kid you not. A girl is dying in a terrifying, violent, horrifying way and this is what he’s thinking:
“It’s just that… she doesn’t look as though she needs help. Her pale face is contorted with anger. Not fear. Not distress. Just fury. Her white hair floats like an aura, jerking in delayed reaction with each of her capable movements.”
Like I said – a girl just died and he’s having a hard on for Emma. And even worse, we’re supposed to be having a hard on for how awesome Emma is. The text is all about Emma.
In fact, Chloe’s death seems to be nothing but an agent for making us sympathetic for Emma. It felt cheap and dirty. Sure, taking on a bullshark is a seriously awesome thing to do. Almost as awesome as that time a wrestled a crocodile. But let’s not get off track here. When sitting down and planning how to make a main character rock super hard, I could think of a hundred ways that didn’t involve creating a token character, immediately killing her off and then using that death to wank about how awesome the protagonist is.
I mean, first of all… gross from an imagery point of view. Second of all, holy flipping duck twat, Batman, way to be offensive.
Second reason:
The sexism.
There’s nothing wrong with creating a sexist society. However, there is some responsibility when doing so. That the writing doesn’t actually support or romanticize or give tacit approval for the sexism is a good start. Of Poseidon features a heavily misogynistic mermaid society. And as such, the male characters act like a bunch of misogynistic dicks. Once again, completely understandable. But then it’s when everyone else just kind of goes along with that and doesn’t see a problem that my eye started to twitch. And then when some pretty outright paternalistic bullcrap takes place, I started seeing red. Like when a stalker mermaid arrives for a female character, Rayna. They are mated against her will and her refusal and hatred of him is treated as a comical device in the story – just her being a fickle and childish girl – not actually a woman rebelling against a system that doesn’t allow her to choose her mate or even requires her to be present for the ceremony. She’s angry at him because they were childhood friends and he’s always known that she never wanted to mate. He went behind her back, asked her Dad and organized for them to be mated. She’s pissed at hi. Naturally. Personally, I would have seduced him out onto an isolated locale and impaled him on a rock. Rayna’s anger and hatred toward him is just laughed off by everyone. Including her brother.
Excuse me? EXCUSE ME!? What the ever loving fuck?! Oh, I see. Women in this world don’t know what they want until the smarter, better men come along and show them. Right. RIGHT.
Then there’s Gallen who is just sexist plain and simple. He dismisses his sister, does not discuss the information he’s working on with her – but will with her mate – another man. I am told that he takes over Emma’s life and treats her much like a bit of baggage in the name of taking care of her. I didn’t see any progression toward a less sexist Galen having any kind of revelation that women weren’t all a bunch of objects to be ordered around like sheep.
You expect women to be unreasonable barnyard animals too busy masticating and going into heat to do any reasonable and logical thought, fine. But think like that and try to be a romantic interest in a YA novel I’m reading? No way. Sorry, Galen. You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
Third reason:
The writing.
I truly disliked the writing. Not only was it incredibly telling and flat but the story also jumped awkwardly between the first person narrative for Emma and the third person narrative for Gallen. It did not feel polished or finished at all.
“Stop!” she yells.
Galen stops. But Emma’s not talking to him. She’s talking to the shark.
And the shark stops.
Emma wraps both arms around Chloe and hugs her to her chest, leaning her friend away from the attack. “You can’t have her! Leave her alone! Leave us both alone!”
The shark turns, saunters away as if sulking.
SHARKS CAN SAUNTER?! AND SULK!?
I know what she’s doing here and that’s being abrupt and edgy with a tense moment. But I just trip over those sentences every time I read them. And a lot of this book is like this. Part of me wants to take a red pen to it and just clean it up a bit. It’s not like Banks is necessarily a bad writer – but that her writing isn’t smooth. There’s no poetry or rhythm to it. Just these jarring, awkward sentences that hurt my brain.
Fourth reason:
The characterization
“Hi! My name is River Swan Desmonda Sparkle-Eyes!”
Emma was, in my opinion, a Mary Sue – and that is a term I don’t use often. Basically, I felt she was an author insert. Rare compelling eyes, one of a kind in her species, ultra special, father AND friend died to create sympathy. Even Gallen, when not with Emma, only thinks about Emma. He can sense her on land when that’s supposed to be impossible. It’s always the same with Mary Sues. Impossibility surrounds them and they’re just so fucking SPESHAL while being the most boring, repetitive, inoffensive turds around. They problem with Mary Sues is that, if you’ve read one you’ve read them all and the only thing that deviates them is the degree to exactly HOW speshul and ewnique they are. And the more Mary Suish they are, the more the other characters spend every fucking moment talking and thinking about Mary Sue – which as far as I could see, what exactly what happened in this book. The only character flaw the author has given her is that she’s clumsy. Clumsy is not a character flaw. I’m sorry, but it’s not. It’s a lazy way of trying to make a young, beautiful female character immediately adorable and relatable to an audience and writers do it all the time. Stop. Just stop it, okay?
Even if the story telling explains the clumsiness (she’s not meant to be on land – she’s meant to be in the water) it still makes for a weaker character. Because if you can’t bare to give your MC a more intense flaw than ‘clumsy’ than that becomes ALL you can say about her. “What’s Emma like?” “Oh, she’s just this really clumsy, insecure teenage girl.” Clumsy and insecure? No! Never. That only marginally ties her to like 95% of the YA MC population!
Basically, I can deal with bad writing – to a degree. And bad characterization – to a degree. And sexism – to a degree. But throw them all in with the death of a token character and smoosh it into a terrible mess? Then I can’t deal. Then I throw my hands up in disgust, delete the book off my ereader and try to scrub my bloody brain free.
fourheadjen
What a spot-on review! I had the same issues while reading this book. Plus, I felt the author emphasized how white Emma was, a bit too often. :/
And the writing was so awkward and clumsy!
Kelley
Wow, I’m glad I read this review. Saves me the time of trying to read it myself.
cynicalsapphire
Dude, it gets SO much worse. Just so you know. The part with Emma’s ‘friend’ dying pissed me off so much. She remembers her through the first day of school and then forgets about her for pretty much all the rest of the book. She’s mentioned once more towards the end, but not even in an i miss her kind of way, but just yeah I used to have a friend. Huh.
Also, this girl has no other friends. If she’s so extra special amazing, why does no one else talk to her? Maybe because she feeds her friends to sharks? I mean, goddamn, even Bella had school friends. She sort of had a life without Edward. This girl is WORSE.
Perhaps the thing that made me angriest, though, was the Rayna plot line. It made me so freaking mad the way everyone ignored her complaints. I thought ‘here, here at least is one somewhat likable character!’ Then, later, the guy whose name I don’t remember pretends to hook up with Mary Sue to make Rayna jealous. Rayna flips out and then they go to fuck on their stupid mermaid island. So, basically, when she said no what she actually meant was I am overwhelmed by my love for you, please boss me around.
*THROWS ALL OF THE THINGS*
riceball1759
You aren’t the first blogger to say that the book was a disappointment…the description made it sound so good. This was a really good review since you didn’t finish it:) I’m definitely not going to buy it, but I do plan to read it sometime just to see for myself. I’ve been seeing/reading a number of books that have seriously disappointed me and others (don’t read The Pale Assassin). Now I’m becoming somewhat paranoid about buying books without really knowing what everyone thinks about them…sigh.
Kara_M
Sharks do not saunter. For real? Sharks swim. They don’t have feet. Not to be rude (okay I’m being rude), but that writing sample is TERRIBLE. Is the rest of the book that bad? I don’t think I would like this one. Token characters are getting killed off and there is a sexist society that is seen as acceptable? Yeah no. I do wonder maybe if towards the end the society changed it’s viewpoint, but based on the other reviews I am seeing, I guess not? This sounds like a definite miss for me.
Stephanie Sinclair
@Kara_M I read the whole book. It never got better. SO MUCH FAIL.
Kara_M
@Stephanie Sinclair Okay then. O_O Good to know.
Stephanie Sinclair
@Kara_M I want you to read it just so I can read your review. Heh.
Stephanie Sinclair
I kinda wanted you to finish this book. For evil reasons, of course. LOL.
AnimeJune
Yikes. Hilarious review, but yikes. Man, Mermaids seem to be the new Zombies (which were the new Angels which were the new Vampires) these days but so many of them suck dolphin balls. Wake, Poseidon, What Lies Beneath, The Vicious Deep (which was okay but had a hella stupid female love interest). It seems impossible to write a decent mermaid story – and I’ve got two more on my TBR. Kill me now.
Here’s hoping against hope that Hannah Moskowitz’ TEETH will splash in and save the day!
JustALilLost
Yes!! While I didn’t have as drastic a response as you, I definitely wasn’t as into it as many others seemed to be unfortunately….
Sarah saz101
Oh goodness… “River Swan Desmonda Sparkle-Eyes!”
*gaspgigglesnort*
This one’s a tricky one… I LIKED this book… but it’s… in spite these problems… and I’m kind of wondering if that makes me a bad person :S I think I have a tendency to switch off and go for the ride when reading, and that totally happened for me here. But… YES YES AND YES to everything you said. Galen needed a swift, hard kick to the… whatever the the bits man-maids have, and… OK, seriously. QUESTION: Did no one else ever wonder how mermaids make more mermaids? Are they just immortal? Burst forth fully formed from their fathers’ heads like Athena? I WANT ANSWERS, DAMMIT.
*cough*
I kind of wish I could have your brain sometimes…
christinashoe
I actually got through the whole thing, but UGH, THE WRITING. I just couldn’t get into it. Not to mention Emma is a complete idiot. Apparently the best way to not get eaten by a shark is to yell at it. Hmm…makes perfect sense.
amongthegoblins
Wait. I haven’t read this, obviously, but from your review it sounds like Chloe dies because she attacks a shark…
…and then Emma orders the shark to go away, after Chloe is already dead?Is that what happens?
heurs
Wow, I was going to read this but this review makes me want to chuck it in disgust.