The Mermaid's Sister By Carrie Anne Noble
The frustrating thing about this book is that it had so much promise. The set up and feel of the world and characters had the potential to be a beautiful and touching story. Instead I felt mostly irritation at the relationships between the characters which seemed slapdash and rushed. A wanted a story about loss and sisterly bonds. What I got was a poorly construed romance with a little villain thrown in. Even as an adventure story the scale is small and while I really wanted to like the characters I was left feeling at a loss. 236 Let me begin by saying that I'm very happy I didn't pay money for this book because if I had then I may have forced myself to finish...
It was on page 57 that the battle raging in my mind over whether to push through and finish this book or to give up and read another book on my mile long to read list finally ended. Needless to say the book lost, which was a shame because I love fairy tales and mermaids are my favorite mythical creature.
My largest issues with this book can be explained in two ways: the awful writing and the horrible protagonist.
The author's writing style felt incredibly forced. Her attempts to make the scenes seem lyrical and magical fell flat and continuously jerked me out of the story. While an exceptional style of writing is, of course, a lovely treat for a reader, writing concisely, clearly, and unpretentiously is also more than acceptable. Noble's writing read as if she were unaware of this. Her obsession with annoying metaphors was also quite painful. Yet, perhaps with some difficulty, I may have been able to get past Noble's excruciating writing if the story had been at all compelling or if I had cared at all about her characters, but it was not and I did not.
Every turn of the plot felt incredibly contrived. Additionally, our young heroine (if she can be labeled as such) was one-dimensional and boring. Clara is a shining example of a weak female character. She does absolutely nothing about her problems, instead sits around and weeps waiting for the boy she is in love with to come and rescue her. The plot literally cannot move forward until outside factors compel Clara to stop crying for a fraction of a second. She also is a dull wall flower who has some serious inferiority issues. Clara constantly describes her sister as prettier than herself and therefore more deserving of love and gifts. Additionally, Clara describes herself as the unfun sister in addition to the plain one. One of her greatest fears is her sister going unchaperoned *GASP* to a show. I'm not actually sure if Clara likes anything or is good at anything because of the fact that she has such low self esteem and seems to dread any event that may bring her pleasure. Geeze, Clara, maybe it's not your sister's pretty face, but her ability to go five minute without crying ad actually allow herself to enjoy life a bit that causes boys to like her?
Overall, I am sorely disappointed in this book and wish I had quit reading sooner so I could have spent my time on a more worthwhile endeavor. There are better books out there, go and find one and don't waste your time on this book. 236 The Mermaid’s Sister was an enjoyable story to listen to. It’s a sort of fantasy young adult coming of age tale. A story of love, family, adventure, magic and self-discovery. I loved the magical and fantasy feel of the story, but as it felt a little too young adult for me, I couldn’t quite give it 5 stars. Definitely one I recommend to fans of young adult fantasy, and would probably appeal to teenagers.
I borrowed this in audiobook format through Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
236 3.5 ⭐️ 236 A lovely tale about two sisters brought up together on a beautiful mountain. One was brought by the stork, the other left in a shell.
Their story takes them on a journey of magic, danger, captivity, adventure & mystery, as one sister tries to save the other.
At times it felt quite young and aimed more at teen readers I felt, it was still enjoyable & magical though.
236
There is no cure for being who you truly are…
In a cottage high atop Llanfair Mountain, sixteen-year-old Clara lives with her sister, Maren, and guardian, Auntie. By day, they gather herbs for Auntie’s healing potions; by night, Auntie spins tales of faraway lands and wicked fairies. Clara’s favorite story tells of three orphan infants—Clara, who was brought to Auntie by a stork; Maren, who arrived in a seashell; and their best friend, O’Neill, who was found beneath an apple tree.
One day, Clara discovers shimmering scales just beneath her sister’s skin: Maren is becoming a mermaid and must be taken to the sea or she will die. So Clara, O’Neill, and the mermaid-girl set out for the shore. But the trio encounters trouble around every bend. Ensnared by an evil troupe of traveling performers, Clara and O’Neill must find a way to save themselves and the ever-weakening Maren.
And always in the back of her mind, Clara wonders, if my sister is a mermaid, then what am I? The Mermaid's Sister
I love mermaids.
This book started off with a charming and intriguing premise: Two sixteen-year-old girls have been raised as sisters by their adopted Auntie, a loving and wise witch who's taught them herbcraft and more. But now, on the cusp of adulthood, one of them, Maren, is showing her birth nature: she is transforming into a mermaid.
Our POV character, her sister Clara, is emotionally torn by this irrevocable change - she doesn't want to lose her beloved sister. However, she recognizes the fact that Maren sees her change as something right and necessary - even desirable. She reconciles herself to the fact that Maren will have to go to the sea.
There's a LOT of potential here for a beautiful story, rich in symbolism about love, loss, sisterhood, and the inevitable changes that come with maturity.
Unfortunately, that's not what the author wrote.
I had three kinds of problems with this book.
First, what I'd call technical problems. The great tension of the plot is getting Maren to the sea. This would have been no kind of problem at all if the characters had just planned in advance. If they hadn't waited till the last minute, there would've been no issues at all.
And, a big failing of the book is that as the plot goes on and Maren is more affected by the change, she ceases to be a real character. It would've been fine - and effective - if she became more alien, more inhuman, but that's not what the plot does. Instead, it treats her as an object to be carted around.
The second category of problems: The awful, awful love triangle. This is crying out to be a story of sisterly love. Instead, the author switches the focus to a love triangle involving the two sisters and their adoptive 'almost-brother.' I am sorry, but to have a teenager deciding that the boy she has grown up with as a brother is her love interest is NOT appealing to me. Introducing jealousy between the two sisters - over the sexual love of their brother - weakens the story significantly. It may certainly be possible to introduce romance in this sort of situation, if written masterfully - but this book does not pull it off. It feels icky.
The third category of problems: The religious aspects. At the end of this book the author thanks her Christian writers' group, and God. Now, it is certainly possible (it's been done frequently) to write a book espousing Christian values and to have it be an excellent book, one with a powerful discussion of ethics and a strong moral compass.
However, that is not what comes through in this book. The Christian (in quotation marks, because I do NOT think these things are what Christianity is actually about) aspects of this book come through first, in the main character's bizarre and inappropriate obsession with modesty - I mean, at moments where it is literally the Very Last Thing that she should be worrying about, because so many WORSE things are going on. Similarly, she picks extremely inopportune moments to worry about violence. And finally, there's the marriage thing.
Overall, the story just didn't live up to my initial expectations.
Many thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinion is my own. 236 First impressions do matter, and I couldn’t help being attracted to “The Mermaid’s Sister”. The cover art is gorgeous and it promises a good fairy tale-- one that weaves relatable, everyday humans with fantastical creatures. Unfortunately, the attraction faded when I was about 3 chapters through, and what's left was a feeling of ambivalence that lingered until the end. There is nothing original, nothing unique. The setting of an early 20th century fantasy rural America was charming, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly. There did not seem to be a logical structure to the world-building either, which was disappointing. Reading it didn’t really feel like a chore, but it was so easy to be distracted while reading it. I kept zoning out and had to backtrack to figure out what was going on. Half the time, I realized once I was caught up that I didn’t really missed anything important.
“The Mermaid’s Sister” is about Clara and Maren. When Maren starts her transformation into a mermaid, Clara with the help of a dear family friend O'Neill, set off on an adventure to save her--the sister she has known and wants to keep. We get to follow Clara’s coming of age, her struggles with finding herself, and her love for- - and jealousy of -- her sister whom she perceived to be prettier and have special attributes she did not have.
The characters are cute, but they could be more developed. Clara is enamored with her sister and constantly describes her beauty. Yes, her sister is a beautiful mermaid, but it sounds like Clara has a major inferiority complex, and that’s never addressed. Whenever Clara mentions herself, she talks about how she’s not pretty like her sister, not brave, not skilled, not at all noteworthy. This could have been an interesting plot point, where she realizes she doesn’t have to be a glorious, mythical creature to be special. But she never does. Even at the end, when someone tells her she’s brave and sweet, she refuses to believe it. Meanwhile, her sister doesn’t seem to live up to all the praise. The faster Maren transforms into a mermaid, the less personality she has. Once she loses her speech early in the book, all she does is primp, cry, or stick out her tongue at Clara. She seems more like the object of a video game quest than a dimensional person experiencing a major transformation. The sisters don’t feel real at all, and I find the secondary characters: Scarf, O'Neill and the Auntie more enjoyable than these two.
The plot is straightforward, simple and, in my opinion, a bit predictable. Their mission is determined at the beginning, and their mission is accomplished at the end. There aren’t any twists. They do hit a few snags to slow them down, but it still ends exactly how I expected. The resolution felt forced though, and there are still so many loose ends that are never addressed at all. I also thought the love story in the book was just thrown in, out of the blue, for the story to end neatly.
In places, the writing is beautiful, perfectly fitting for a fairy tale. Other sentences are awkward and full of flowery descriptions (sometimes that I thought, “who really describes things this way?”). It does make for vivid imagery, but most of the time I find it comical. There are also some moments with modern references that didn't seem to fit with the fact that it takes place in pre-industrial times. Maybe, if it took place in an actual fantasy world instead of pre-industrial America, it would have made more sense. Nothing about the story world is realistic besides the fact that it takes place in Pennsylvania. Some books are successful at presenting fantasy within a realistic setting. This one was not.
Perhaps this book was meant for a younger audience than YA, but the story has very adult themes of murder and slavery, and with the sexual suggestiveness that seems to be aimed at an older audience. In my opinion, there are no positive lessons for preteens, it is too juvenile for teens and too adult for younger children. The language is way too formal and there are time wasting chapters describing childhood stories and other over the top descriptions that just seemed like filler. This could have been told in less than half the time and would probably have been more entertaining. Carrie Anne Noble has great potential, and this novel could have been greatly improved by a more ruthless editor. 236 The Perfect Beach read! So unique and beautiful with an extremely interesting premise! 236 I chose this book as my Kindle Firsts selection for the month of February. Here are my notes from the read.
General notes:
* The text is clean and well written. I sense no textual issues and my grammar/spelling radar is not getting tripped so that's good. I would say that the writing lacks any real style or flair. It's all very straightforward and not terribly unique. Nothing reaches out to grab you about this.
* Pacing is average to slow. The story takes a while to develop in any meaningful way. It's not action packed by any means.
* Not terribly original either; as I said, rather faerie tale like.
* One of my pet peeves in YA fiction is the presence of sex or drugs. This one has none of the above unless you count magic potions; it's got lots of those!
Detailed Reading Notes:
* Starts out in Pennsylvania in 1870... well, but there's a blue wyvern and a sister who is slowly turning into a mermaid. At the end of chapter 1 we've got two girls, both foundlings with oddly magical backgrounds adopted by a single woman with faerie blood. My very initial impression of this is that it's not just young adult, it's YOUNG adult. Almost pre-teen but we'll see how it develops.
* By the end of chapter 3, we've got yet another foundling, this one a boy. Adopted by a traveling peddler and friend to the other two female foundlings. Can nobody in this story take care of their own children!?!? With this, I think the introductions are over and the story is ready to begin so no more spoilers. I don't know about you but I see NO potential for romantical anything. None at all. OK. Maybe a bit.
* As chapter 7 closes, our dramatic pitch inclines. We're in spoiler free territory so I can't tell you what but suffice to say that we're approaching a dramatic climax. Somewhat problematic is the idea that our main characters seem to be the only ones you believe in magic but they're certainly not very secretive about it. The wyvern is out and about a lot and without restriction if it's also supposed to be a secret. That makes me a bit perplexed.
* By the end of chapter 11 we're REALLY in faerie tale territory. There's a evil faerie curse that keeps true love apart unless some complex series of events occurs to break it.
* Chapter 15 closes and we've reached a narrative nadir. Tragedy strikes, what will become of our protagonists? All seems hopelessly lost! But I'm guessing it's not. Again, as stated other places, nothing terribly original or unpredictable about any of it.
* OK, concluding, this turns out almost exactly as you would expect. Pretty cliche and predictable but still reasonably entertaining.
PS: As always I strive to be as helpful as possible. If you find this review unhelpful, pop me a comment so I can do better next time. Thanks!
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Rob Slaven
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Unfinished at 30%
I got a bad feeling at the beginning of this. Something in my gut told me in the first few pages that a vital element of the story was missing, that I was not going to enjoy this.
I should have listened. There are so many things wrong with this, I could barely get through a page without getting annoyed at something.
So, positives? Ummm, I liked Scarff? He was a pretty decent storyteller and named after one of my favorite accessories. That's a plus I guess.
The writing is dullsville. There's at least one quote every chapter about the main character constantly wishing for things. What does it mean? Does it highlight her own passivity in life? Tie in to the magical realism? Nope. There's no depth or meaning to be found. I felt like the writing constantly skimmed the surface of every character and gave no indication of diving deeper.
Speaking of magical realism (which when done properly is one of my favorites of favorites), I don't know what the hell was going on with the magic elements of the story. Maren is transforming into a mermaid, Auntie knows potions, there's a wyvern, and babies are literally dropped off by storks. But somehow the idea of a traveling salesman selling potions is scoffed at? And they don't want to let the village know about them?
The world in The Mermaid's Sister is incredibly flat. Yes, Maren is turning into a mermaid. Okay. How about giving a little context as to how mermaids fit into this world? Something?
But the kicker for me is Clara, our protagonist. What does she look like? No idea. What does she like to do? Well, she wishes for things. And, um...she walks and talks and eats. Probably poops and sleeps too. All of which my cats can do. They wish for more salmon treats daily.
Oh, she has the best friend O'Neill! Maybe he'll help develop her character! And he's actually not too bad. Until Clara develops feelings towards him and immediately decides it's true love. Cause when you're 16 and living in some weird ass mountains with a mermaid in a bathtub, what else is there to do but fall in love?
Long story short, I think that a story about a girl turning into a mermaid and testing the bonds of sisterhood should be magical. This couldn't even fire off a spark. 236
