Scan barcode
A review by katie_is_dreaming
The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill
3.0
A few years ago, I read a collection of fairy tale retellings by another Irish author, Emma O'Donoghue, in which she also retold The Little Mermaid. I'm mentioning it here because O'Donoghue's short story has become the feminist retelling I judge every other feminist retelling by. O'Neill's effort is a fair YA retelling, but nothing I haven't seen before.
It suffers from what most retellings of The Little Mermaid seem to suffer from - the instalove the mermaid feels for the prince she rescues. At least O'Neill adds to the mermaid's reasoning for going to the human world: she also wants to find more information on her mother. Still, I wish the obsession with the prince hadn't played such a big part in this story. I'm sometimes ok with instalove, but not when she knows next to nothing about the man.
O'Neill also adds in the mythology of the rusalka, the drowned human maiden who spends her afterlife in the sea taking revenge on men. That is an interesting twist in this story. As is the mermaid's father's domineering of his daughters and the merpeople. The Sea Witch, Ceto, was an interesting character too.
This is definitely an interesting read for YA readers wanting to engage with feminism in fiction, and O'Neill's writing here is pretty good. Still, I think there are better retellings of this story, O'Donoghue's, for one.
It suffers from what most retellings of The Little Mermaid seem to suffer from - the instalove the mermaid feels for the prince she rescues. At least O'Neill adds to the mermaid's reasoning for going to the human world: she also wants to find more information on her mother. Still, I wish the obsession with the prince hadn't played such a big part in this story. I'm sometimes ok with instalove, but not when she knows next to nothing about the man.
O'Neill also adds in the mythology of the rusalka, the drowned human maiden who spends her afterlife in the sea taking revenge on men. That is an interesting twist in this story. As is the mermaid's father's domineering of his daughters and the merpeople. The Sea Witch, Ceto, was an interesting character too.
This is definitely an interesting read for YA readers wanting to engage with feminism in fiction, and O'Neill's writing here is pretty good. Still, I think there are better retellings of this story, O'Donoghue's, for one.