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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