Reviews - The Sea Witch: A Little Mermaid Retelling

343 reviews for:

The Sea Witch: A Little Mermaid Retelling

For the record, I read paranormal/monster romance regularly, so that didn’t contribute to this DNF.

I know that a lot of Little Mermaid stories rely on the mermaid character being a fish out of water (har har), but something about this one felt wrong and maybe a bit gross? Averil is supposedly around 25, but she’s been completely smothered at sea and restricted by a puritanical religion, so she doesn’t really act like an adult in any way or form. The sea witch has to explain pretty much everything about sex and teaches her about it with demonstrations.

It comes off as very predatory, but in a gross way, not a fun way. We get occasional throw away lines from Averil about how she’s trained as a warrior and knows a little bit about the lives of adult mermaids in relationships, but in the 30-ish percent I read it doesn’t contribute to any sense of agency or maturity at all.

I have read other spicy romance retellings of The Little Mermaid where the character in the spot of the mermaid managed to be a sheltered adult stumbling around in spicy/adult situations without giving me the same vibes, so I know this isn’t just me having a bad reaction to taking this particular fairy tale to the adult space.

I did flip to the last chapter or two to see if that icky edge to the relationship goes away, but I was not impressed and I had to stop. Which I was actually really upset about because I thought Zoltan (the titular sea witch) was very well written.

Make your own decisions about this book, but just go into it aware of what’s going on.

shivani_reads's review against another edition

2.5

fast-paced

allthebookssheloved's review against another edition

3.5

I stumbled upon this book on Instagram as a reel by the author and I’m glad I did. Here are my honest thoughts:

The book could have been shorter, and the world building in the initial chapters felt clunky. I honestly almost DNFed. But I’m glad I stuck with it because from 20% onwards the story got so much better. The plot was fun, the banter between Averil and Zoltan was entertaining. She is a good example of character growth and he is a good representation of the morally grey antihero who works hard to deserve his redemption arc. He’s not “alphahole” but a tortured misfit, my favorite type of grump. And the prince was a well written villain, the side characters were interesting. I couldn’t put it down because I wanted to know what happens next. The spice was really good too. I also liked that the final chapters were dedicated to the romance, like a very satisfying, long, epilogue.

Another issue I had with the writing style; the dialogue was a bit inconsistent with the historical period, I don’t like when it’s too modern for the horse and carriage times.
But that didn’t take away from the story, I was connected to the characters and invested in the plot and political high stakes.

Did I enjoy it? Yes.
Would I reread it? There is a high probability that I would borrow it on KU again.
Will I read more books by this author? Absolutely.