The Surface Breaks

May 10, 2019

Gr 9 Up-The Sea King sees his daughters, little mermaid Muirgen and her sisters, as posessions. He expects them to be gorgeous, silent, and submissive. Though the youngest, Muirgen is the Sea King's most beautiful daughter and is betrothed at a young age to her father's old war buddy. Unhappy with this arrangement, Muirgen finds herself swimming to the surface for the first time where she comes upon a party yacht and falls hopelessly in love with a handsome young man, Oliver, from a distance. When a storm approaches, Muirgen rescues him from the wreckage. After days spent pining for him, she gives her voice to the Sea Witch in exchange for legs and one month to make Oliver fall in love with her. Borrowing from both the Hans Christian Andersen classic and its Disney adaptation, this reimagining adds some twists: Muirgen leaves her life, fleeing physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; the Sea Witch is not malicious; and Oliver is a shipping-empire heir who is suffering from PTSD. All these factors ultimately culminate into a feminist revenge fantasy that will satisfy a very specific reader. Though the author's tone is slightly preachy and it's sometimes infuriating to read through Muirgen's naiveté, the story moves along at a quick clip, especially once Muirgen gets her legs. VERDICT Though not perfect, this is a readable and ultimately empowering tale that will appeal to fans of Elana K. Arnold's Damsel. If it finds its readers, it'll make waves.-Abby Bussen, Muskego Public Library, WI

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2019
Youngest of five sisters, and now 15, mermaid Muirgen--or Gaia, as her mother wished to name her--can now visit the ocean's surface. Her life has been dominated by her (one-dimensional) tyrannical Sea King father, who is only interested in her obedience and beauty--a point the author makes excessively--and with wondering why her mother left. Gaia rescues a young man named Oliver from a shipwreck and is promptly smitten. Back underwater, she makes a deal with the Sea Witch (the most nuanced and engaging of the characters) to have her tongue cut out in exchange for legs so she can be with him. Gaia has one month in Oliver's world to make him love her or else she dies. It's a long month for readers. Tedious descriptions of Gaia's bloody, broken feet (metaphor alert for standing on one's own feet) and Gaia's attempts to attract Oliver with her compliant passivity (all the while making astute observations of what is expected of females) repeat tirelessly. Eventually Gaia has her ostensible empowerment moment, but whether or not Gaia lives to please men, her identity is still controlled and defined by them, and readers may wonder whether that is actually empowerment at all. All mermaids are white, Oliver is dark-skinned, and other human characters are ethnically diverse. This heavy-handed attempt to update a fairy tale pits trope-infused female characters against trope-infused male characters to the disenfranchisement of both. (Fantasy. 14-18)

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