Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Fathomfolk

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Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan

8 reviews

book_gremlin42's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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lila_still_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

As the oceans continue to get more inhospitable, the gleaming city of Kiankawi beckons Fathomfolk towards the shore– suppress your waterweaving and join the humans to gain access to the hope of a better life! The reality within the city is, of course, much less pretty- the journey is dangerous and new arrivals face slums, prejudice, and the looming threat of further government crackdown.

Mira is the half-siren captain of the border guard who’s done everything right but still isn’t respected by her human peers. Her relationship with Kai, a Fathomfolk diplomat, has brought her closer to comfort, love, belonging- the things she’s always felt were just out of reach, but she still can’t bring herself to be happy when her success feels so precarious.

Nami is Kai’s wayward little sister, kicked out of her underwater home for a revolutionary scheme gone wrong. Sent to investigate the Oneson Engine, she instead falls in with the Drawbacks, a group of insurgents, and their kelpie second-in-command Firth. Will her work undermine everything her brother has tried to do from within the government? Or is Kai’s battle one he can never win?

Meanwhile, Cordelia the seawitch makes deals and the tension between human and Fathomfolk only grows. Maybe there’s a hope for a peaceful future, maybe there’s change on the horizon. Or maybe everything is about to get a whole lot worse.

2.5/5 stars, rounding up because it’s pretty well written.

What I liked:

Lots of kinds of magical creatures! I loved how Chan pulled from different mythologies and traditions to make Fathomfolk of diverse kinds- I thought it underlined her points about people who are in fact from wildly differing cultures getting lumped together as the same under an exterior gaze and both the difficulties and interesting community that can form as a result.

I love interlocking stories. It took some time for the pace to pick up, but once it did, Chan did a good job weaving Cordelia, Nami, and Mira’s POVs together in a compelling manner. There’s also a strong cast of secondary characters- there’s A LOT of them, but I remember and was able to keep track of most of them (the Chinthe didn’t really stick), which points to good writing.

Something about her early descriptions of Kai made me always picture one of my friends when she talked about him (probably because they both rock cool antlers in the club sometimes). I liked thinking about my friend :)

What frustrated me:

There’s a lot of interesting grey area in stories about violent revolution, about where lines of morality fall- when it comes to fighting fire with fire, how far is too far?- but Fathomfolk seems uninterested in these questions. Chan grasps for this nuance with Mira and Nami both realizing their ways of approaching making things better (working completely within the system vs. reactive opposition to the point of rejecting incremental change) need a bit from the other, but the ball has already been dropped by making the ‘change from within’ side Kai and Mira, two likeable, moral, main characters, while the ‘oppositional revolution’ side (Lynnette and Firth) is nearly comically evil, tricking and drugging their own followers and doing that big stupid thing near the end of the story.

And Nami- poor, poor Nami- I can forgive a naïve teen character (as a neurodivergent young adult I often see a lot of myself in them) but Nami was frustrating for 85% of this book. I also found Nami’s final decision in terms of ‘taking responsibility’ to be a foolish understanding of justice- I would buy Nami suggesting it, but how could Mira encourage it? They’ve established the system as an unfair one, I would not trust them to treat Nami fairly. I was left wondering, damn, does Mira hate her? Nami needs adults in her life, Mira!

Cordelia was almost there for me- aspects of her story I can’t quite spill without spoilers (let’s just say her relationship to her family) were very interesting to me, but her motivations stayed muddled in a way that felt messy rather than mysterious. She’s also…she’s literally Ursula, right? And I was able to look past that until a climatic set piece got a bit too Disney’s Little Mermaid and took me right out of it. I know Ursula doesn’t own that entire brand- I was letting it slide- until that set piece!

The pacing picked up in the back third but it took a while for the story to get moving and a little longer for me to feel invested in the characters. The twist about the Oneson Engines felt a little out of left field- it hurt my perception of Kai and Mira, which I don’t think was interrogated enough, and once again took something that could be metaphorical and powerful and made it literal and blunt (also it once again made Nami look foolish! If so many people know about it, work there, how was she able to learn nothing about it??). And there’s another big twist near the end that felt just a little under set-up to be the big bad final thing (or for Lynette’s actions around it to make sense).

TLDR; not going to read the sequel, but I would read something else by Eliza Chan if it looked interesting to me

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for an eARC of the book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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yourbookishbff's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a promising debut - deeply character-driven, with multiple rotating POVs and an intricately-built pan-Asian/post-apocalyptic/semi-drowned world. I loved how many sea creatures exist among the Fathomfolk - kelpies, sea dragons, sirens, mermaids, and more - and how Chan is blending mythological inspiration and fairy tales (East Asian dragon lore meets The Little Mermaid makes for a great premise).
I'm still grappling with a few of our characters, though, and their roles as the series progresses. Mira, in particular, half-folk and a border agent for the city, attempting to affect change from within, has me unsure of Chan's intention for the story and thoughts on resistance to violent systems. I'm interested to see where the series goes from here, as I really enjoyed the expansion of the world at the end, the potential directions the sequel can take, and the many possibilities that lie ahead for all of our characters. I am grateful to have multiple POVs, and probably enjoyed our sea witch's story the most. These are all flawed characters, grappling with their own insecurities and ambition as they question their loyalties to each other, and fantasy readers who particularly enjoy character work will appreciate this series start.
Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit for an advanced reader's copy!

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errie's review against another edition

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3.0

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devynreadsnovels's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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nickel_books's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

East Asian mythology + racism + classism + climate crisis + political intrigue all in one marvelous debut. A cast of characters caught between status quo and revolution, Chan creates an exciting world centered in Tiankawi - a semi-flooded city. Fathomfolk forces us to grapple with our role in many social issues most prominent being xenophobia and refugee resettlement.

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mjscooke's review against another edition

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adventurous tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

At times this feels just like being jostled about in the sea this book is boom is built upon, for better or worse. It’s definitely not boring and i particularly enjoyed the world building ! With a vast cast of interlocking characters there is a perspective for everyone but at times it gets confusing as to which perspective is prominent at the time. Despite my empathy being a bit stifled by the whiplash of many povs, I highly recommend checking trigger warnings if that is something you are concerned about as underneath the fantastical elements are some hard hitting themes such as

Racism, Toxic Relationships, Gaslighting, Borderline Cult Indoctrination etc

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macaronoui's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.25

Book is set in Tiankawi, a half submerged city where fathomfolk and any non humans are treated atrociously. The humans have built sky scrapers and fancy safe buildings, while a lot of the fathomfolk live in shanties.

In this dystopian story, there are a lot of parallels with colonialism and imperialism. The story does get very bleak with many parallels to historical events.

It is interesting to see the difference in approaches to trying mend their situations (following rules / force).

That said, the worldbuilding is really good. It’s easy to imagine what the different parts of the city look like. The attention to detail is much appreciated.

Even though we have this magical world with sirens and dragons, it still seems structured like a very patriarchal and heteronormative society which is a bit of a bummer.

It would have been very helpful to have either detailed descriptions and or illustrations of all the different fathomfolk (kelpie, kappa, sirens, rusalka, merrow-maid etc).

Between Cordelia, Nami, Kai, Mira, Trish and the drawbacks, there are simply too many characters and points of view. A bunch of repeated between the different characters and the pacing is really slow at times. I think the book would have been better with less characters.

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