by Anne Greenwood Brown
Hardcover, 303 pages
Published June 12th 2012 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers
ISBN 0385742010 (ISBN13: 9780385742016)


Blurb

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge. They blame Hancock for their mother’s death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family’s homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock’s daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistable good looks and charm on ususpecting girls. Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there’s more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him.

The Good

  1. The merpeople.  The twists on mermaid legends were the best parts of this book. Merpeople don’t eat humans, they siphon emotions off of humans. Merpeople can also see auras, helping them to decide whether a particular human is appetizing or not. The only confusing aspect of the twisted legend was the selective telepathy. Apparently merpeople can communicate telepathically and read the thoughts of animals and those within their family, so long as the family members are underwater.

  2. The darkness.  I love The Little Mermaid. It’s my favorite Disney movie, but it was refreshing to see bloodthirsty, cold-hearted mermaids as they were originally depicted in mermaid legends. Mermaids do not want to sing to you about their thing-a-ma-bobs. They do not swim around with their crab friends looking for adventure. They are predators. They will kill you.

  3. The romance.  The romance developed slowly and felt as natural as a stalker-turned-boyfriend relationship can. I liked that aspect of it, even if it did feel like a mermaid version of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight.


The Bad

  1. The flat characters and writing.  I was really excited to get my hands on this book, but unfortunately the writing and the character development just didn’t live up to expectations.

  2. The slow pace.  I liked the plot well enough and the book itself was a quick read, but there were times when I felt like things just crawled to a stop. I wanted to yell at Calder to get his butt in gear and DO something already!


Overall Rating

This book was a quick read with a fairly interesting plot and refreshing twists on mermaid legends. Unfortunately, the lack of character development and flat writing kept it from reaching its full potential.