Reviews - Voice of the Ocean

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670 reviews for:

Voice of the Ocean

Kelsey Impicciche

3.8 AVERAGE

zmazingzoe's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Celeste ! I've been waiting to meet my crybaby princess for Months and I wasn't disappointed 💙🌙🌊 Do you think I could give Kiyami my number ?

cozysabie's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

"Come rest your weary bones, love. Come join us in the sea."

GENRE: Romantasy Retelling
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐.5/5
FORMAT: eBook Arc

Long Review:
Voice of the Ocean is the second book I read this year that is focusing on The Mermaid Retelling with its own twists. This was a lovely read that I quite enjoyed and was entrapped in the tale of it. I enjoyed the found family trope and the character development of Celeste. I also quite enjoyed learning about the different kingdoms and Goddess, the history of sirens and how they came to be from the different Goddess.

This is a tale of Celeste, who is an emotional siren, where emotions are not cherished, treasured or encouraged. And as she is a princess, she is shielded from many things in life and comes off as naive. I like to think that The Little Mermaid is a story of an FMC that is naive and develops across the story (not that being naive is a bad thing per say). In Voice of the Ocean, it is very much a story of someone who does not know where she stands in society and tries to find her own place in it. She feels like she fits in the places that she shouldn't

"Unfortunately, the surface was where the young princess felt most at peace."

She basically battles with the concept that Humans are ALL meant to be the enemy of her kind and no one explains to her why this is the case. She is curious and wonders why they must consider everyone who is human as an enemy. She battles with the idea of what is evil when she sees humans for the first time in a ship. I think alot of the issues that Celeste struggles with could have been helped if her parents, friends or anyone in her surrounding addresses her questions instead of ignoring them.

"Protecting the innocent and punishing the evil. But evil didn't look the way she had imagined."

And alas, never having any of her questions answered, never getting anything addressed and everyone trying to change Celeste obviously leads to two things: Celeste always struggling with internal conflicts AND Celeste struggling to accept the decisions she makes throughout the story

"She was tired of ruining things. She was tired of everyone treating her as if she were some problem to solve."

"Celeste found herself crying whenever she was overwhelmed, or angry, or sad. Her family had teased her for it growing up. Told her to calm down. Be less human. That no one would take her seriously if she cried."

Then, she does a bunch of things that get her banned from the chorus and sirens, even though she is a princess. She receives a bit of help from her mother, the queen, and escapes to become human through the Sea Witch. She is meant to have one mission: Kill the Prince and then, come back to re-join the siren and ask for forgiveness for all her actions.

Of course, she ends up going on an adventure, learns a lot of things about Humans, herself and the voyage she joins. She discovers that they are pirates, rather than the sailors she thought they were and the Prince? He is the Prince of the Pirates. She learns, grows and develops throughout the story and her journey is a lovely one. She learns more about life and slowly peals off the layers of the shielding she grew up around. She meets new people and finds a new family in her crewmates

"Most of the time, I find life doesn't go the way you want it to," Nasir said, his dark brown eyes creasing at the corners. "But most of the time, things turn out the way they should."

And you know what? Despite growing and developing, she maintains some of that naivety, which makes her kind and a good person. It is what makes her, her and while she maintains this hope I never could as a pessimistic, it might just be what helps her unite sirens and humans in the end of it all

"As she took in the city around her, she realised that humans made all this. If she could just show her mother these things, maybe she, too, would see that humans couldn't all be bad."

This is a story of Celeste learning to accept herself and when we reach the ending, we don't really see her ending her internal conflicts. However, isn't this true in life? We dont end our internal conflict as soon as we start to learn. Its a process and we grow through the journey

"She felt foolish now. It had all been a lie. She knew nothing about this war. About the humans. About herself. And it had cost everything."

I hope book two continues Celeste's journey and we get to see what happens next, how she changes and grows and what becomes of her, her Pirate Prince and her found family + her siren family.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for my eArc copy in exchange for my honest review. The quotes are taken from the eArc copy of the book and might not reflect the final copy.

k65462k's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

flyerberton's review against another edition

2.0

adventurous 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: Complicated

I wish I could have given this three stars but there is so much that threw me off. I get that her emotions and indecision is part of her character but I spent so much of the second half confused on what was going on. And the ending oh my goodness. I know she said there will be a second book but geez we couldn’t get any resolution at the end? Wished there was some part of a happy ending

plainjane_readss's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous emotional medium-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: Yes

I initially requested this book because of the cover. It's just soo pretty and mystique. It's only after I requested that I realized who the author is. Kelsey Impicciche (aka @kelseydangerous) was my saving grace in uni with her bubbly personality and Sims challenges🥹 I'm a proud fangirl as "Voice of The Ocean" marks Kelsey's debut YA romantasy and the beginning of an exciting duology.

Despite the slow start, I was still highly intrigued by the direction of the story. I was about halfway through when I found out this will be a duology, which means it unfortunately ends on a cliffhanger just when things start to get interesting. But I'm definitely keen to read the second book!

I'm truly no fantasy expert, but I found this story enjoyable and easy to visualize, thanks to its straightforward world-building. There was a lot of drama happening, but I just had a fun time with it because there's great found family dynamics made up of loveable characters.

This is YA which means the romance wasn't steamy but I honestly didn't mind it much because what started as an enemies vibe between Celeste and Raiden had some build-up of lingering looks that provided enough chemistry for me🤭

I think this is a pretty great and solid debut from the author. If you've seen Kelsey's content... I feel this book fits her personality - if that even makes sense?!
And I'm sure that if you love (a retelling of) The Little Mermaid and the atmospheric action of Pirates of The Caribbean, then you'll likely end up enjoying Voice of The Ocean.

*𝘈 𝘩𝘶𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘦-𝘢𝘳𝘤. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯!*