Reviews with content warning for Drug use - When We Believed in Mermaids

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When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O'Neal

15 reviews

etonskates's review

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

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becksreadsbooks's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I liked this book more than I expected to. I found both the present day timeline and the flashbacks compelling, and I was really interested in both sisters' lives. The writing style was very readable and I loved the settings. I even found the surfing aspect really interesting!

However, my biggest issues with the book came down to pacing (and there are spoilers ahead here).

I felt like there was a lot of buildup to the sisters reuniting and Josie/Mari's revelations, and I really liked that part, but then the falling action was so brief. Honestly, there really wasn't much of a falling action at all--it jumped almost straight from the climax to the resolution. I felt like there needed to be more chapters/plot between when Josie/Mari revealed her secrets to Kit and the epilogue when everything was resolved. There wasn't enough detail for me about why Kit decided to forgive Josie/Mari. I knew she was going to, of course, but I wanted more detail about Kit's thought process there.

Similarly, I was a bit disappointed with how the Veronica Parker plot line ended up. I was really invested in that subplot; it almost reminded me of an Evelyn Hugo storyline! But it was just kind of offhandedly mentioned in the epilogue-- "Oh, it was the husband because she was cheating on him." While I don't take any issue with that plot per se, I wish there was some time devoted to Josie/Mari discovering what happened in Helen's journals rather than it just being mentioned in the epilogue like that. Again, this is where I feel like a few more chapters before the epilogue would have been useful. It seemed like it was such an important part of Josie/Mari's storyline as she explored Sapphire House, and I just felt like there wasn't enough space devoted to its resolution. That ending kind of made me wonder why it was discussed so much if there wasn't going to be a real conclusion to the story.

In the end, I felt like I still had questions about why some of the characters, particularly Josie/Mari, did the things they did. Specifically, I wanted more complexity behind Josie/Mari's choice to fake her own death. I think there WAS a lot of complexity there--she was trying to escape the abuse and neglect she suffered as a child, her memories of Dylan, and her addiction--but she just kind of explained it away as "I had to." It's hard to articulate, because I think the characters were complex enough, but it's almost as if they didn't realize their full motivations behind their choices. I had the same issue with Dylan--I think his suicide was clearly motivated by the physical abuse he suffered as a child before he came to the Biancis, but it was odd to me that it was explained as just being due to having sex with Josie/Mari.

For the most part, though, I did enjoy the book a lot; it was just the last 30 or 40 pages that left me wanting more!

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