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A review by thepurplebookwyrm
Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-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? It's complicated
3.5
The world-building of Fathomfolk was refreshingly original and decently fleshed out. Yes, there are obvious questions that arise if you look too closely at it, of course, but... I don't know, I expected less 'effort', and thus immersion with this one, honestly. Yet I did feel immersed (hehe, get it, there's a lot of water involved here); the largely aquatic world of Fathomfolk, or rather the urban, tidal and amphibious setting of Tiankawi had texture, colour, scent and felt sufficiently believable for the duration of the story. I also really enjoyed the fact the titular Fathomfolk were made up of a variety of aquatic creatures, or beings, from different world folklores and mythologies. I'm not really sure how it all made sense from a greater, uhm... evolutionary, taxonomic or even cosmogonical standpoint, but that's fine – I was mostly able to mute my nit-picky brain for this one.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the fact this story had pretty decent and well-developed theming. Political theming, more specifically, on societal and class oppression, intra-class stratification, discrimination, xenophobia, and the means to rectify social inequality. Is reform, violent revolution, or something else, the better solution? I really appreciated the fact multiple perspectives were given page-time and consideration – nuance for the win! I think you could even read... something about climate immigration, and climate refugees due to environmental degradation, out of this book given the recurring motif of loss of land to rising sea levels as well.
A lot of the above theming flowed through the story's main characters; different POV characters held different political and social viewpoints which I thought were, once again, expressed with an appreciable measure of nuance. So yes, I'd say the character work was pretty decent to good overall, especially for this kind of story – Serena's character certainly stood out to me in this regard. Straddling character work and world-building, I'll also note it was kind of neat to see a sort of retelling of the Little Mermaid story in this book. I found it neat in no small part because it was worked in in a way that didn't take centre stage, that wasn't too obvious; it was, rather, one colourful strand amongst others in the book's tapestry.
There was a bit of romance in this story and... I didn't object to it, yay! I'll even admit I found Mira and Kai's relationship quite endearing. It was also nice to see a loving mother-daughter relationship in Mira and Trish.
The book's pacing worked for me; the prose as a whole was... unremarkably competent. I was also... okay with the book's ending, although I decided to read Fathomfolk before learning it would be the first in a series (and nowhere on the book is it actually mentioned that it is the first in a series... please stop doing this, publishers!) – and I don't really plan on continuing with it in any case. I didn't like a specific narrative decision, however, in terms of what I'll call 'moral pay-off' (Kai becoming a dragon pearl in place of his sister felt wrong to me; she had genuine crimes to pay for, and Mira did not deserve to lose her husband, oh well ).
So yeah, this was, honestly, surprisingly good and enjoyable; I really did not expect it would score a 7/10! 🙂
PS: also, dragon people, slay!
I was also pleasantly surprised by the fact this story had pretty decent and well-developed theming. Political theming, more specifically, on societal and class oppression, intra-class stratification, discrimination, xenophobia, and the means to rectify social inequality. Is reform, violent revolution, or something else, the better solution? I really appreciated the fact multiple perspectives were given page-time and consideration – nuance for the win! I think you could even read... something about climate immigration, and climate refugees due to environmental degradation, out of this book given the recurring motif of loss of land to rising sea levels as well.
A lot of the above theming flowed through the story's main characters; different POV characters held different political and social viewpoints which I thought were, once again, expressed with an appreciable measure of nuance. So yes, I'd say the character work was pretty decent to good overall, especially for this kind of story – Serena's character certainly stood out to me in this regard. Straddling character work and world-building, I'll also note it was kind of neat to see a sort of retelling of the Little Mermaid story in this book. I found it neat in no small part because it was worked in in a way that didn't take centre stage, that wasn't too obvious; it was, rather, one colourful strand amongst others in the book's tapestry.
There was a bit of romance in this story and... I didn't object to it, yay! I'll even admit I found Mira and Kai's relationship quite endearing. It was also nice to see a loving mother-daughter relationship in Mira and Trish.
The book's pacing worked for me; the prose as a whole was... unremarkably competent. I was also... okay with the book's ending, although I decided to read Fathomfolk before learning it would be the first in a series (and nowhere on the book is it actually mentioned that it is the first in a series... please stop doing this, publishers!) – and I don't really plan on continuing with it in any case. I didn't like a specific narrative decision, however, in terms of what I'll call 'moral pay-off' (
So yeah, this was, honestly, surprisingly good and enjoyable; I really did not expect it would score a 7/10! 🙂
PS: also, dragon people, slay!