A Darker "Tail" Than the One You Remember...

So far, all of my knowledge of mermaids is a sweet Disney Princess and the terrifying monsters from Harry Potter’s Tri-Wizard Tournament. So it was a pleasure to read Mermaid Moon, which was considerably darker than Ariel’s tail (pun intended), but still less murderous than JK Rowling’s creations. Well... The writing here is beautiful. Cokal is a gifted story teller and weaves a story of traditional Catholicism and mermaid lore together seamlessly. I also love the plot line: Sanna, born of a seavish father and a landish mother, journeys to find said mother after a forgetting spell was placed on everyone after she was born. No one remembers who the mom is. And mom doesn’t remember bearing a child. The villain Sanna encounters, Baroness Thyrla, is one of the most memorable in recent books. The lengths she goes to attain eternal life is as creative as it is macabre. She stands out as one of the best parts of the book. There are also lovely and natural LGBT themes integrated here. And finally, a portray of childbirth where the procedure actually sounds as painful as it is. So what brings my rating down— Though the writing was beautiful, it was at times too much. This book was long. And it wasn’t length that added anything compelling. There was description upon description (I guess some people really need to know how inter species sex happens) that left me skimming, but didn’t really allow me to connect in any meaningful emotional way, and multiple points of view (too many) at times were unnecessary and took me out of the story. And while it claims to be a feminist story, the “boys are dumb and violent” line got a bit heavy handed (and the women here were far deadlier than any male violence on the page) and other than the mermaid tribe being matrilineal, they weren’t strong, good women. Except for Sanna (and Kett), the women were awful and didn’t stand out as “yes! This is why girls should be in charge.” Overall, I’m glad to have read this, and really liked the unique take on the mermaid story, but it wouldn’t be something I would come back to. Thank you to NetGalley and Candlewick Press for giving me this ARC to review.