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A review by alexisisreading
Prince of Song & Sea by Linsey Miller
3.0
3.5 rounded down!
Prince Eric is one of my favorite Disney princes so I was excited to read this book. The book tells the story of Prince Eric who is determined to break a curse that was placed on him when he was younger. I really liked the premise here of Eric’s curse - Eric is such an easygoing character that it almost seems unfair someone as kind and charismatic as he is would be cursed. The curse also was very on point because it’s the total opposite of what Ariel needs to break her own deal. I enjoyed the books version of Ursula as well, she seemed way more powerful in this story and it was interesting to read about what her other plans my have been besides what we know about her from the original work.
Where it sort of felt flat for me was that the story was less of retelling and more of directly taking the Little Mermaid and adding a few extra bits to it. It didn’t feel like a new story. If you’ve seen the movie, you pretty much know exactly how the story is going to go. While there were added bits that made it much more Eric’s story rather than Ariel’s those bits didn’t feel necessary because the story ended the same. There were also some parts of the book that would read weird if you hadn’t already seen the original movie, which I suppose is a safe enough assumption that most people have but when I read a retelling I prefer when they are completely different to the original.
Despite that, this was a light and easy read - perfect for the beach which is where I read it. It wasn’t necessarily anything spectacular, but it was not bad either.
Prince Eric is one of my favorite Disney princes so I was excited to read this book. The book tells the story of Prince Eric who is determined to break a curse that was placed on him when he was younger. I really liked the premise here of Eric’s curse - Eric is such an easygoing character that it almost seems unfair someone as kind and charismatic as he is would be cursed. The curse also was very on point because it’s the total opposite of what Ariel needs to break her own deal. I enjoyed the books version of Ursula as well, she seemed way more powerful in this story and it was interesting to read about what her other plans my have been besides what we know about her from the original work.
Where it sort of felt flat for me was that the story was less of retelling and more of directly taking the Little Mermaid and adding a few extra bits to it. It didn’t feel like a new story. If you’ve seen the movie, you pretty much know exactly how the story is going to go. While there were added bits that made it much more Eric’s story rather than Ariel’s those bits didn’t feel necessary because the story ended the same. There were also some parts of the book that would read weird if you hadn’t already seen the original movie, which I suppose is a safe enough assumption that most people have but when I read a retelling I prefer when they are completely different to the original.
Despite that, this was a light and easy read - perfect for the beach which is where I read it. It wasn’t necessarily anything spectacular, but it was not bad either.