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sarrie's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
TL;DR: Full of promising themes and a beautiful world, however cold and distant characters truly killed the story.
My very short pitch for Fathomfolk would be Babel, but make it wet and a touch whimsical? This follows three primary points of view as political tensions come to a head between the Fathomfolk and the humans. We see this entirely through the Fathomfolk lens, as different levels of political alignment fight to either tip the scales into war or find a compromise.
Our three leads are Mira, Nami, and Cordelia. Mira is the first of her kind, a half siren police officer who is dating the Fathomfolk ambassador to the humans. Nami is the sister of that ambassador, and also young and beyond impetuous. Cordelia is probably the most interesting, attempting to play all sides for her own gain. She fills many roles and I’m not going to talk on her much, as much of her story is spoilery. The thing about these characters is that we are so disconnected from all of them there is little to no emotional impact when things happen within the story. We aren’t shown much, traumatic moments are either shown in stark detail or we’re teased an event that never happened. Because of this it’s either very jarring (no emotional stakes till suddenly there are dead bodies on a ship), or very lackluster (oh no, I saw that coming a mile away). Besides that I had huge problems with Nami who is nothing but a young teenage girl stereotype and is written to be too stupid to live. She is a plot device to show us the more pasion driven side of things and it was, just not great. Mira starts interesting but quickly becomes cold and uninteresting.
This should be a fast paced and tension filled story. And it is at times. I loved where Eliza Chan was trying to go with this, some of the conversations she started to make. However the style of writing, which kept us farther than arms length and at times couldn’t decide if it wanted to be whimsical or serious, really stopped it from speaking it’s truths.
Give it a shot if you’re SUPER interested in the world and setting, otherwise it might be a skip.
3 out of 5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, War, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Racism, and Violence
Minor: Rape
macaronoui's review against another edition
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Police brutality, Kidnapping, Torture, Toxic friendship, Bullying, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Gaslighting, Death, Murder, Classism, Ableism, Blood, and Trafficking
guybrushtmp's review against another edition
I unfortunately had to DNF this book as it has a scene where a character is trapped in a crowd crush incident which is one of my personal triggers. There was no trigger list going in for me to check this.
Overall, I really did appreciate the vivid depictions of the city and its intricacies. I do not think this author was trying to, as some reviews say, put a hodge podge of cultures together in a mash. I think it was more intended to be a heavily multi-cultural newer city, so this isn't London, Tokyo, Hong Kong with its long historical foundation but more like New York or Toronto. The issues discussed are very real.
However, as I have been reading up on story outlining recently I could really see the slowness in the story. The inciting incident basically happens at 40% and it feels like you are stuck in exposition/introduction waiting forever. Additionally, there were some very weird jumps between chapters. I had to check quite frequently if I had skipped pages because it felt like the scene cut off mid-thought. If this hadn't been an ARC I would have put this down earlier sadly because I was excited for this.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Overall, I really did appreciate the vivid depictions of the city and its intricacies. I do not think this author was trying to, as some reviews say, put a hodge podge of cultures together in a mash. I think it was more intended to be a heavily multi-cultural newer city, so this isn't London, Tokyo, Hong Kong with its long historical foundation but more like New York or Toronto. The issues discussed are very real.
However, as I have been reading up on story outlining recently I could really see the slowness in the story. The inciting incident basically happens at 40% and it feels like you are stuck in exposition/introduction waiting forever. Additionally, there were some very weird jumps between chapters. I had to check quite frequently if I had skipped pages because it felt like the scene cut off mid-thought. If this hadn't been an ARC I would have put this down earlier sadly because I was excited for this.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia
Graphic description of a crowd crush incidentzombiewilhelm's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This ended up being a 3.5-star read for me. It's not that I didn't like it, but I felt like I was forcing myself to finish it so I could move on to other things. The blurb sounded so good and the cover is gorgeous. It just wasn't as captivating as I would have hoped. The pacing felt slow and disjointed. I'll concede that it did pick up in the last third of the book, but I don't know if it's enough to make me want to read book 2.
There were several things I enjoyed about this book. The setting of Tiankawi is amazing. Her descriptions of the semi-submerged city were excellent. I think I might need a map because, like Nami, I found myself getting lost when the characters moved locations. It was sometimes difficult to recognize where we were.
I enjoyed the rich diversity of the fathomfolk. I recognized some of the names from various cultures worldwide, so that was cool. I recognized some of them, but I wish there were more descriptions of the folk. I like how realistic the society feels in terms of the racism and xenophobia that the immigrants/refugees encounter. But also in terms of the distrust and hatred within that community, like the prejudice against sirens from other folk.
Some parts didn't quite make sense. In this world, humans created laws to reduce the waterweaving abilities of the fathomfolk, which also leaves them defenseless against human violence. In fighting the injustice that the fathomfolk endure, which is horrific, there are two options presented: work slowly within the system or outright terrorism. There isn't any middle ground.
I didn't find myself particularly attached to any of the main characters. I feel like we changed POVs so frequently that we didn't get to spend a lot of time with any of them. It was painful to watch Nami keep making mistake after mistake. Her love/obsession with Firth was weird and predatory. Cordelia had a lot of potential as a bargain-making sea witch (very much Ursula).
There were several things I enjoyed about this book. The setting of Tiankawi is amazing. Her descriptions of the semi-submerged city were excellent. I think I might need a map because, like Nami, I found myself getting lost when the characters moved locations. It was sometimes difficult to recognize where we were.
I enjoyed the rich diversity of the fathomfolk. I recognized some of the names from various cultures worldwide, so that was cool. I recognized some of them, but I wish there were more descriptions of the folk. I like how realistic the society feels in terms of the racism and xenophobia that the immigrants/refugees encounter. But also in terms of the distrust and hatred within that community, like the prejudice against sirens from other folk.
Some parts didn't quite make sense. In this world, humans created laws to reduce the waterweaving abilities of the fathomfolk, which also leaves them defenseless against human violence. In fighting the injustice that the fathomfolk endure, which is horrific, there are two options presented: work slowly within the system or outright terrorism. There isn't any middle ground.
I didn't find myself particularly attached to any of the main characters. I feel like we changed POVs so frequently that we didn't get to spend a lot of time with any of them. It was painful to watch Nami keep making mistake after mistake. Her love/obsession with Firth was weird and predatory. Cordelia had a lot of potential as a bargain-making sea witch (very much Ursula).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
caseythereader's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, Blood, Alcohol, Classism, Death, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Addiction
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