Also, I did enjoy reading this on the whole !!Ībout 60 years have passed since the end of the last book, and World War One is in full swing.
So why did I give this four stars? Firstly, I have a personal policy of rounding up where I would’ve given a half star (unless I have a very good reason not to). But even if she did have to be straight, her romance subplot wasn’t convincing and so ended up just being annoying. You could cry historical realism, but also Runa and Alia are mermaids. And yes, I’ve decided that when there are loads of characters and not even one of them are queer, I’m calling it out no matter what. Runa was hurt and confused at how her sister could’ve been so in love with a boy that she’d leave the sea for him, that doesn’t exactly scream ‘straight girl’ to me.
I was not even remotely convinced of the romance. It takes more than what this book gave for me to be convinced of a romance. Henning gave herself away by having that boy insist on calling himself a Wizard. Viewing these terms as gendered versions of the same thing is entirely down to J K Rowling, and it’s one of many things I’m mad at her about. Wizards and witches are entirely different things. Wizards are not just the masculine word for witch. Something that bugged me throughout is that there was a boy who called himself a wizard, while the girls were witches. Seeing as these two things were my favourite things from the last book, it was disappointing to see that they weren’t here in this one.
In the first book there tended to have to be an exchange or amplifier or some sort, which did not hold true for the whole of this book. The magic system seemed to be a lot less strict as well.
One element from the first book that I really enjoyed, the flashbacks and their unique povs, were absent. I didn’t enjoy this as much as I did the first one. Like the previous book, this takes more from the original story than it does from the Disney version. This is a retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, following on from the previous book which provided a backstory for the sea witch.
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