A review by nymphie
Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan

emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

Another “adult” fantasy that reads as a trite YA. It’s also a very loose (and poorly hidden) The Little Mermaid retelling with splashes of Asian mythology mixed in. I probably would have like that if it had been marketed that way, but it took me by surprise and came off as cliche and cringy. Overall though — not bad for a debut fantasy, and the cover design is gorgeous. 

The story was interesting, but the multiple POVs were hard to follow — especially when two of the three characters have similar names and the remaining character goes by multiple names. I didn’t feel that the third POV was necessary at all, and her motivations were so confusing to follow. It seems like her only purpose in the story is to create chaos and she doesn’t actually want anything.

If I had known how political this book was going to get, I probably wouldn’t have started it. I wouldn’t have found this book at all if not for it being the March Illumicrate selection. I read fantasy books to escape the issues of the real world, and I’m getting so sick of revolution/overthrow stories in YA. However, this didn’t affect my rating as it’s simply my genre preference and nothing inherently wrong with the book.