Reviews

This is a very dark, angry, and frustrating retelling of the Little Mermaid. Under the sea it’s a patriarchal society. The mer-men in this are narcissistic, chauvinistic, and physically abusive. The males, including the main character’s love interest, aren’t that swoon worthy either. Females are only prized for their beauty. The mermaid main character, Gaia (meaning “of the earth”)/Muirgen, is naive, immature, and pines after Oliver, a man she’s only seen once and he is already with someone else. In spite of that, Gaia ends up sacrificing her tongue, voice, and tail for decaying legs to pursue lust and pretending to be something she’s not. Gaia hopes “true love’s kiss” will erase her trauma of being betrothed to Zale. For a feminist tale, I was hoping for the MC to have more gumption. This book was not really for me.

Triggers: men physically abusing women, emotional abuse, swearing, fat shaming, vivid description of a tongue removal, alcoholism, being touched without permission, and attempted rape.

hkeogh13's review against another edition

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4.0

I usually despise fantasy but I actually really enjoyed this. O’Neill is never subtle with her feminist push through her novels and I think this was definitely a story that needed writing in this kind of blatant narrative style. Whilst it was a bit cringe in parts (and that’s the inner fantasy sceptic in me), it had a lot to say about how women are treated in society, particularly in archaic societies which still get explored through our literature and fairy tales. It makes me really question the kind of stories I’d want to read and promote to children.

alice2410's review against another edition

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3.0

I thought the feminist re-imagining of The Little Mermaid was an interesting concept and Louise O'Neill doesn't hold back with parallels to modern feminist issues and the #MeToo movement. The writing was beautiful, honest and sometimes uncomfortably familiar despite the fairytale setting. However, I unfortunately struggled to connect with the book's heroine.

bitterglitch's review against another edition

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2.0

I see what the author was going for, but I don't think it was successfully executed. The first half of building up the Sea Kingdom was pretty good and did a better job of showing rather than telling, while the second half was the opposite and did a ton of info dumping. The main character didn't seem to learn anything until the last minute. Everything seemed to happen at the last minute.

an_odd_ducky's review against another edition

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1.0

I understand that this book was trying to make a statement, but I felt like it was just trying too hard. I call it ‘paint by numbers feminism:’ the message of feminism is pushed so hard and so simplistically that often the characters themselves spell it out for the reader. It’s exactly what you think it’s going to be. There is no message here that will challenge you to think more or require a deeper analysis.

I struggled with whether to give this book one star or two, but eventually decided it had to be one, because I just didn’t enjoy reading it. Every male character is a caricature of evil, and all the women are empty and actionless. The world is confusing - in the blurb it states this takes place off the coast of Ireland, but the story gives no indication of that setting at all. I spent the whole book trying to figure out what time period it is - mentions of props make it sound like its modern, but then there are also mentions of cravats and the human characters speak like this was set 100 years ago.

It seems like this book is redeemed for a lot of people by its ending, but I am really disturbed by that. Our main character, Gaia, kills the man who tried to rape her, and then chooses to become the equivalent of a siren herself, specifically so that she can carry on killing more men. Like, I am glad Gaia found her voice in those last twenty pages, but it gives really strong vibes that the message of this story is ‘all men are trash and we should kill them.’ Big yikes.

elenaner's review against another edition

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5.0

Ok, Ok, I'm going to write something about this book.

This is a feminist story, but the main character is not a feminist. She is one of the most sexist character I have ever read. And that's the whole point.

The whole book is based on her extreme sexist behaviour, because she is influenced by the society she lives in.

We get the message thanks to the strong contrast between the MC negative actions and what they should be.

If you want a feminist book where the characters are strong and badass, this is not the book for you.

If you want an innovative book about feminism, just buy this.

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