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hickorynut 's review for:

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
4.25
adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Despite the violence of warring pirates and imperialists at sea, this was filled with moments of found family, gender-fluidity, and queer love. The characters were well developed and as intended, easy to hate or love. I did find the final chapter a bit disappointing as it was a cliffhanger with a side character, while I felt the world and story had been neatly wrapped up within the prior chapter as a single novel. 

Flora was a young girl around ten when she and her older brother were taken on as crew members by the captain of a slaver ship. She is raised amongst them as a young man named Florian. When their most recent load of passengers contains a young Imperialist girl of noblity, Evelyn, Florian is assigned to stay at her door and guard her from the rest of the crew. They develop a close bond that quickly turns into love. Florian helps Evelyn escape, sending them on a whirlwind of journeys both together and separate, finding magic, empowerment, confidence, and eventually each other once more.