Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.64 Content Rating: PG-13 Everyone knows what happens in the end. A mermaid, a prince, a true love’s kiss. But before that young siren’s tale, there were three friends. One feared, one royal, and one already dead. Ever since her best friend, Anna, drowned, Evie has been an outcast in her small fishing town. A freak. A curse. A witch. A girl with an uncanny resemblance to Anna appears offshore and, though the girl denies it, Evie is convinced that her best friend actually survived. That her own magic wasn’t so powerless after all. And, as the two girls catch the eyes—and hearts—of two charming princes, Evie believes that she might finally have a chance at her own happily ever after. But her new friend has secrets of her own. She can’t stay in Havnestad, or on two legs, unless Evie finds a way to help her. Now Evie will do anything to save her friend’s humanity, along with her prince’s heart—harnessing the power of her magic, her ocean, and her love until she discovers, too late, the truth of her bargain. (goodreads.com) My last read for the Hocus Pocus Read-a-thon, this one for a prompt to read a book featuring powerful witches. I’m not usually one who likes to read books that are just about witches, but a fairy tale retelling about ocean magic and mermaids is right up my alley. And a villain origin story always promises to be fun and heartbreaking! Also, that cover is amazing and I couldn’t say no to it. I feel like, while I read many, many fairy tale retellings, I don’t often read novel length Little Mermaid retellings. There have been a couple of short stories over the years, but I can’t remember any novels that I’ve read, though I know there are many out there. Are there others that you know that you would recommend? I loved reading Sea Witch. The beginning sucked me in quickly and didn’t let go. Unfortunately, most of the time when I was reading this, it was night time, which meant I stayed up past my bedtime more often than I should have. Oh well, I wear the bags under my eyes proudly. It was definitely worth it to stay up and read this book. It was less dark-origin-story-y than I thought it was going to be, honestly. I feel like, usually, with villain origins I end up sad at the end of the story. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I wasn’t that sad when everything wrapped up in Sea Witch. Maybe it’s because the witch in The Little Mermaid has never seemed that bad to me. Like, sure, in the Disney movie Ursula did try to take over the ocean and kill the main characters, but she stuck to the rules of her contract and it is thanks to her that Ariel even got to be with Eric anyway. And in the original story the sea witch isn’t even a villain, just tells the mermaid exactly what to expect and gives her all of the warnings, doesn’t interfere at all, and even tries to help her become a mermaid again for the low low price of her sisters’ hair (oh, and one measly murder). I guess that’s probably why this book didn’t feel as sad as other villain stories. Most of the time the villain starts out as a good guy, goes bad, does horrible things, betrays their former friends/family, and then probably gets killed, etc. But the sea witch from The Little Mermaid is honestly a pretty neutral character unless we’re talking about the Disney version. I’m trying really hard not to spoil anything, but I did want to mention that it didn’t leave me as melancholy as other villain origin stories leave me and I liked that about it. Some books *glares at Heartless by Marissa Meyer* should take notes. As far as characters go, I’ve read some reviews that said that they thought the characters were flat and that the male characters were interchangeable. To that I say PUH-SHAW. Iker and Nik were definitely not interchangeable and I’ll fight anyone who says that they are. I definitely have a favorite of the boys, but I won’t tell you which. I will admit that the characters didn’t really go through a ton of growth, but I thought Evie, the narrator, was fine the way she was and she grew in the ways she needed to.
All of that being said, I did feel like the ending was sort of anti-climactic. I’m not sure what exactly about it let me down, and it wasn’t bad, it just fell a little flat. Of course… there is a sequel… which I may or may not have already ordered from Book Outlet… along with another book even though I’m on a book-buying-ban until I get moved into my new space. (Sssshhhh don’t tell my wallet or my moving boxes.) But I had to buy it because I need to know what happens to Evie next, okay? I really liked her character and I want more of her story. Image sources:
Cover: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36502054-sea-witch GIFS from giphy.com
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Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.97 Stars Content Rating: Strong PG-13 (for violence and suggestive content) Alessandra is tired of being overlooked, but she has a plan to gain power: 1) Woo the Shadow King. 2) Marry him. 3) Kill him and take his kingdom for herself. No one knows the extent of the freshly crowned Shadow King’s power. Some say he can command the shadows that swirl around him to do his bidding. Others say they speak to him, whispering the thoughts of his enemies. Regardless, Alessandra knows what she deserves, and she’s going to do everything within her power to get it. But Alessandra’s not the only one trying to kill the king. As attempts on his life are made, she finds herself trying to keep him alive long enough for him to make her his queen—all while struggling not to lose her heart. After all, who better for a Shadow King than a cunning, villainous queen? (goodreads.com) This one is another read for the Hocus Pocus read-a-thon I am doing this October. It fills a prompt for reading a book about an evil character. Admittedly, Alessandra and the Shadow King are a bit more like anti-heroes than truly evil characters, but between the two of them they do quite a lot of killing and scheming, so we’ll count it. I started off really enjoying this book. It’s quite refreshing to read about a teenage girl who is confident, collected, and has a plan for her life. Even if that plan involves killing the king and taking over the empire. But you know, at least she isn’t spending the whole book debating about which college to go to (not that there's anything wrong with books about girls deciding where they want to go to college, it’s just not my jam these days) or which boy she loves or if she should join the rebellion against the corrupt government. Alessandra is not a good person with a noble cause, she’s a morally gray (dark gray) person with a selfish cause. And that was kind of nice to read about for a change. The book wasn’t what I was expecting. I was anticipating more fantasy elements to it, but the kingdom in this is really more like 1800’s Britain with a magical teenage king. There really isn’t any magic in it, save for the king’s shadows, which disappointed me a bit. The world the story takes place in reminds me of the world in The Betrothed by Kiera Cass. Very posh, kind of a snooty world of nobles, a young king, lots of focus on clothing, and most of the discussion amongst the cast of characters is about marriage arrangements and monetarily beneficial matrimony. Actually, it reminded me a lot of The Betrothed, but with more vicious characters. Even though the story wasn’t what I was expecting, it had me hooked and I didn’t want to put the book down most of the time. I probably would have given it four stars or so, but it was rather too steamy for my tastes. I don’t mind romance, but once they start taking off clothes I start skimming to the next part of the story. So, for my personal rating I had to take off a star. I didn’t even feel that bad about taking the star off after I read page 301 because I was somewhat appalled by the double standard that the characters set. Alessandra was talking with her gal pals about romantic interests and stuff like that. Then she asked Friend 1 if she’d slept with the man she was interested in yet. Friend 1 replied that she wanted to wait until they were married and Alessandra and Friend 2 applauded this even though it wasn’t what they would have chosen. Then they asked if the beau of Friend 1 was pressuring her into sleeping with him, ready to take up arms and beat up the dude if he was (which was great, yay). Friend 1 replied that no, he wasn’t pressuring her at all and then they switched the subject to Friend 2 and her boyfriend and if they’d slept together yet. Friend 2 replied wistfully that no, her boyfriend wanted to wait until they were married too, but then Alessandra and Friend 1 didn’t say something like “oh okay, that’s his choice, if that’s not what you want then maybe you should find someone who wants the same thing you want”. No, no, they didn’t say that it was okay like they had said for Friend 1, they started talking about ways that Friend 2 could pressure her boyfriend into sleeping with her before they got married. And, like, I don’t know if that was some sort of social commentary, trying to flip the gender rolls or what, but I did not like it. And sure, they said that he was probably just waiting for marriage because he wanted to make sure that Friend 2 wouldn’t regret being with him or whatever, but we didn’t hear him say that. I don’t mean to go on a rant about one page in the book, but geesh, page 301 kinda made me dislike all three main girl characters and their double standards. Okay, that rant over with, let’s talk about the Shadow King. He was not as villainous as I was hoping. He was actually a pretty sweet guy with the occasional violent outburst. He also was not as mysterious as I thought he was going to be, but that may be because I was expecting him to be like the Darkling from Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. Cuz shadows and darkness and all that. But he was more like Mr. Darcy than Mr. Darkling, but if Mr. Darcy was okay with stabbing people when they don’t do their jobs. I actually imagined the Shadow King with the voice of Mr. Darcy from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie for most of the book. I did really enjoy most of this book and I liked most of the characters most of the time, it just wasn’t what I was expecting. The whole thing was much less dark and mysterious than I thought it would be, but it turned out pretty great anyway. Another nice thing about it, though, is that it was a stand alone, which is rare with fantasy stories (even though there wasn’t a ton of fantasy in this one). However, if a sequel were ever written I would probably read it. Okie dokie, that’s the end of this review. I’d better go woo a king so I can murder him and take over a kingdom. Ta-ta for now! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35702241-the-shadows-between-us?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=w4581jmHIj&rank=1 Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.78 Stars Content Rating: Light R (for language, violence, and suggestive content) Trigger Warnings: Domestic Abuse, Mental Health The Torres sisters dream of escape. Escape from their needy and despotic widowed father, and from their San Antonio neighborhood, full of old San Antonio families and all the traditions and expectations that go along with them. In the summer after her senior year of high school, Ana, the oldest sister, falls to her death from her bedroom window. A year later, her three younger sisters, Jessica, Iridian, and Rosa, are still consumed by grief and haunted by their sister’s memory. Their dream of leaving Southtown now seems out of reach. But then strange things start happening around the house: mysterious laughter, mysterious shadows, mysterious writing on the walls. The sisters begin to wonder if Ana really is haunting them, trying to send them a message—and what exactly she’s trying to say. (goodreads.com) Originally, I picked up this book because I wanted to read a book by a Latino or Hispanic author for National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th through October 15th). I found this one listed on one of my local libraries websites and thought it sounded like a good spooky season read also, since there is a ghostly element to it. And then my wonderful coworkers/friends *waves to wonderful coworkers/friends* alerted me to a Hocus Pocus themed read-a-thon going on in October. The read-a-thon, based around the 1993 movie, involves three teams (Sanderson Sisters, Undead, and Trick-or-Treaters) and different prompts for each team. I am on team Sanderson Sisters and one of the reading prompts for this team is to read a book about sisters. So, Tigers, Not Daughters is killing three reading goals with one stone and it turned out to be an excellent book to boot! Though it features an angry ghost, I wouldn’t exactly call this book a horror story. Paranormal maybe, but not really horrifying. So, if you are looking for a book to scare you, then this might not be the one for you. Honestly, the ghost wasn’t in it as much as I thought she would be. This was really more of a family drama kind of story. Which was a little disappointing since I was sort of looking for a good scare, but also a bit of a relief since I can’t actually handle scary stuff very well. I would describe this book as Little Women, but with more swears, more sexual references, lots more violence, and with more hateable male characters. Speaking of the male characters… there seemed to be a running theme of the men in this story being unhelpful, which is actually kind of interesting. Now, I’ve been out of high school for a few years now and haven’t really intensely analyzed any literature since then, but every once in a while I’ll come across a book that I wish I could have read while in a literature class so that we could get into the nitty gritty details and the literary devices and such. This was a book like that for me. I want to talk to someone about the continuing theme of unhelpful men. Even the nice boy character wasn’t much help. Throughout the story you see instances of the sisters turning to these men and boys for help or the boys/men trying to help unsolicited and when they get involved things almost always get worse or, at least, they don’t get any better. I loved going from being annoyed with the boy characters because of their tendency to make things go south (even when they meant well) to cheering for the girls when they do things on their own. I was also interested in the motif of laughter. (I’m eighty percent sure I used the word “motif” correctly, but like I said, it’s been a long while since high school so bear with me.) I mean, there was even a freaking hyena that showed up throughout the story. Sometimes when spookish happenings were about to occur the sisters could hear the ghost’s laughter. There was one point where two characters got into a fight and one of the sisters couldn’t stop laughing even though it wasn’t funny. There was a point when something horrible and embarrassing happened to another sister at school and everyone, including some unhelpful boys, laughed even though some of them felt bad for her. I no longer possess the skills to pick apart what that could mean, and I’m glad I don’t have to write a paper about it, but I found it really interesting. Okay, that’s enough analytical mumbo-jumbo from me. Let’s rate some characters! Ana - unattainable, much spook, doin’ a protecc. Jessica - The second oldest Torres sister, just working her crummy part time job, making most of the money for their family, keeping things afloat after the tragedy in their family. Makes a lot of bad decisions when it comes to men and sometimes I just wanted to shake her, but she was amazing nonetheless. Iridian - I started out liking her the best because she’s a writer, but as the story went on I kind of disconnected from her a bit. I still liked her character and how multi-dimensional she was, but it became more and more difficult for me to read the chapters from her perspective. Rosa - A saint. A warrior. A detective. Picked pretty much the only helpful boy in the story to hold her hand. The youngest, and possibly wisest sister. 1,000,000 out of 10. Rafe - I feel kind of bad for him… but like not a lot. He’s pretty much the worst. Also, I feel like the only reason I feel bad for him is because of his intense grief, but he also uses that grief to manipulate people so… like, I don’t actually feel bad for him at all. I won’t give away spoilers, but I’m not sure I liked how the book ended for him. Also, what the heck was up with that bracelet? I feel like that was important. John - Poop. Negative 1,000,000 out of 10. I also wish we’d gotten to see more of what happened to him because I’m curious. Peter - A nice boy. Kinda dumb. Unhelpful, but sweet. He’s trying anyway. Bit of a creep at times, but way better than John. Peter’s friends - Also very unhelpful, also creepy, don’t have a ton of redemptive qualities, but they weren’t the worst. Fairly neutral, actually. If this were a Greek play I’d say that these boys were the chorus. They’re typically present for the happenings of the story, but apart from their Mega-Unhelpfulness at the beginning, they don’t sway the plot all that much. That one priest guy - Not helpful. What was with the ants? Supposedly got in a fight with Rafe at some point?? Would have liked to see that. Alright, you’ve probably had enough of my random ramblings about these characters and literary devices that I sort of remember so I’ll wrap this review up now. Basically, what you need to know is that this was an excellent book with some mature themes and the plot and characters have much more to offer than a surface level scary story. It is probably one of my favorite ghost books I’ve ever read and it didn’t leave me with that aching heart feeling that other ghost books tend to leave me with. Okay. I’m pretty sure that’s all you need to know. Thank you for reading, I hope you had a good time and if you’re interested in this book I hope you check it out! I’d better get going because it would seem there is a hyena in my yard. Toodles! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52776262-tigers-not-daughters |
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