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jennifermreads 's review for:
Mera: Tidebreaker
by Danielle Paige
Received advance reader’s copy from publisher via Baker & Taylor book supplier
Actual rating 1.5 stars. I didn’t hate it but saying it was “ok” is a real stretch!
This may be a story best suited for a DC Universe fan … maybe. I am not as familiar with DC characters as I am Marvel and that unfamiliarity was definitely a hinderance in this reading. I felt lost and confused through much of the book. At times, I felt like whole panels or pages were missing, that the storyline was jumping and that I missed something. At two of these “skipping” occurrences, I went back a page and realized that, no, I missed nothing, it just wasn’t there. To me this was a big, hot mess. Underdeveloped characters, an assumption of familiarity with the world, lack of world-building as a result of the assumption, a love story that had me going WTF (whiplash, anyone?!), all of these things just left a bad taste in my mouth.
A small (well, it doesn’t seem small to me but may to others) additional irritation: the tremendous similarity in appearance of Mera and Ellery added more confusion. Several times I had to stop reading and really think about who was in the scene. This is a big no-no-no-NO as a reader: do NOT make me have to think about who is in a scene. The differences should be apparent enough and confusion should not be this easy.
The Goodreads book summary says that Mera is destined to be queen of Atlantis. Um, yeah ... uh, WHAT?! Where on earth did this come from? If the reader is supposed to know this by assumption or previous reading, I was at an additional loss because I did not read the summary prior to reading the damn book. I never got anything other than Mera was the daughter of the king of Xebel who fell in love with Arthur instantly. How does that make her future queen of Atlantis???
Nope. A definite story-to-avoid if you are new to the DC Universe and, like me, have not seen or read anything Aquaman related.
Actual rating 1.5 stars. I didn’t hate it but saying it was “ok” is a real stretch!
This may be a story best suited for a DC Universe fan … maybe. I am not as familiar with DC characters as I am Marvel and that unfamiliarity was definitely a hinderance in this reading. I felt lost and confused through much of the book. At times, I felt like whole panels or pages were missing, that the storyline was jumping and that I missed something. At two of these “skipping” occurrences, I went back a page and realized that, no, I missed nothing, it just wasn’t there. To me this was a big, hot mess. Underdeveloped characters, an assumption of familiarity with the world, lack of world-building as a result of the assumption, a love story that had me going WTF (whiplash, anyone?!), all of these things just left a bad taste in my mouth.
A small (well, it doesn’t seem small to me but may to others) additional irritation: the tremendous similarity in appearance of Mera and Ellery added more confusion. Several times I had to stop reading and really think about who was in the scene. This is a big no-no-no-NO as a reader: do NOT make me have to think about who is in a scene. The differences should be apparent enough and confusion should not be this easy.
The Goodreads book summary says that Mera is destined to be queen of Atlantis. Um, yeah ... uh, WHAT?! Where on earth did this come from? If the reader is supposed to know this by assumption or previous reading, I was at an additional loss because I did not read the summary prior to reading the damn book. I never got anything other than Mera was the daughter of the king of Xebel who fell in love with Arthur instantly. How does that make her future queen of Atlantis???
Nope. A definite story-to-avoid if you are new to the DC Universe and, like me, have not seen or read anything Aquaman related.