A review by reynoldsreads
Speechless by Madeline Freeman

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

4.0

A futuristic little mermaid story set on Mars! Because why not, right?

Seventeen-year-old Aria is an aberration with the ability to breathe underwater, a skill that comes in handy when she’s secretly scavenging the flooded buildings of Old LA with her brother. If they can make enough money from the treasures they find, Aria might finally get to travel the world — but what she really wants is to explore beyond this world. Her opportunity arises with the announcement that a new Mars colony is being formed, and all she has to do is make it through the vigorous and highly-competitive recruitment process… without her aberration being discovered.

This was a lot of fun, and a very interesting world to discover! There was a lot of futuristic technology, as well as futuristic technology that was considered old and substandard, which all helped to set up the classic little mermaid story details. There were quite a few twists along the way, and the story is clearly far from over; I’m not sure how many books there are in this series but a lot of questions were raised in this one — most of them “why?” — and I want answers!