Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Amor Azul

I this was fun. Not super memorable, but fun. Dragged a bit in the middle, and some very high school actions from characters (which I suppose is expected for a YA book).

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bookcaptivated's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted 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

4.0

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kbairbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad fast-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

4.0

I am… so conflicted. On one hand I loved this. I like the writing style, I like how well rounded Sean was with his different hobbies and interests, I like Sean and Crest together, and I liked the ‘fake dating’ going on. On the other hand I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the cheating wishy washy ex (although an argument could be made that that was the point lol) but I kinda also don’t like Miguel. I also really didn’t like Sean’s best friend despite her reasoning for her actions. And honestly I’ve never seen an ending like that and I feel like it was age appropriate yet at the same time I didn’t like it. Again so conflicted but I also kind of loved this book.

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stormeno's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.0

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bashsbooks's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted medium-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? It's complicated

2.75

Out of the Blue is cute, and I love that one of the main characters is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. But I don't think it successfully pulled off the subversive ending that it was going for, sadly, and I think the reason why pervades the whole book: it gets distracted by being preachy.

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elisabeth_e's review against another edition

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i went into this with such high hopes. the cover is beautiful, we have a fat main character, crest is nonbinary—there was so much going for it. maybe it's just me, but within the first 100 pages i felt like there was just an excessive amount of sexual talk for a YA book. sean repeatedly talks about the times he and dominic slept together, crest has the whole "scaling" thing, etc etc. what REALLY turned me off from the book though was a) when crest felt the need to point out the "distinct bulge" in sean's swim trunks and b) sean being described as a "top" and a (future) "bear" when he's 16-17 years old. i know that for the latter sean says he doesn't want to be a sexualized fantasy, but the fact that his friend would even say that in the first place feels weird to me. i know teenagers have sex; that's normal. i just don't like how dependent on sexual content the characters/plot seem.

other reasons i don't think i'll finish this: crest feels bratty and annoying, and sean's entire personality revolves around his ex. i don't see myself connecting with either character

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emily_mh's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I feel cheated by this book. Everything about it was set up like a romcom: the cover, the tropes, the implied retelling of The Little Mermaid, the fact that Sean, one of the MCs, is obsessed with romcoms and points out all the romcom beats in the story… All this for it to end without the most important romcom beat, the Happily Ever After. The characters didn’t even get a Happy For Now. It was like a slap in the face, and aside from being a tonal shift the ending didn’t make sense for other reasons, too.

For example, the narrative is truly focussed on Crest and Sean’s relationship. Any character development is to the level you would expect in a romcom, NOT in a coming-of-age story where the relationship is there for formative purposes, which is what the ending turns the story into. So the ending feels jarring as it depends on having major character development in both MCs, which wasn’t the case. Ironically, the ending is the reason why Crest CAN’T have any major character development, because it depends on their views on humans and the Blue remaining the exact same. I was hoping at least for them to learn that there is a lot of nuance regarding humans and the environment given power systems like capitalism and white supremacy. I was also hoping they might seek to change the parameters of the Journey, because its conditions are unfair and don’t allow meaningful connections between human and mer to form. But Crest just returns to the sea, holding much the same beliefs, only thinking that they might try to spread love for humans among mer, which seems a bit of a weak resolution.

As you can tell it seems I didn’t like Crest in the end, but in fact I didn’t like them most of the book. They didn’t really try to give humans and life on land a chance because of their uninformed view of humanity. I also hated how hot and cold they were with Sean, getting so angry with him out of nowhere and not allowing Sean to explain. And then they really cheapened their connection with Sean when after one little misunderstanding (again, not allowing Sean to explain), they cheated on him.

The only reason this isn’t getting a one star is that there were some redeeming qualities. I was enjoying it in the beginning, I liked Sean as a character, and the worldbuilding surrounding the mer was interesting (despite the literal infodump in the middle).

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