Deep Blue Review

THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

(Only one spoiler, and all it says is something that I think is happening…)

“Her voice was the sound of the sea itself-the whirl and crash of breakers, the howl of a gale, the roar of a tsunami.”

 Completely under rated. Deep Blue surprised me, made me angry, made me sad, and at times just made me stare at the paper saying “WOW”. I picked up this book thinking I was going to be reading a classic mermaid story. The princess, falling in love with the human, etc… You know, the BASIC mermaid stories. This is anything but that. I adored this book for so many different reasons, and I can’t stop raving about it.

My Synopsis:(This synopsis will not do the book justice. You can read a real synopsis HERE)

Miromara, a peaceful realm where mermaids exist and live freely in the ocean. Of course there’s the threat of the Terragoggs(Humans), but things are actually pretty smooth in this kingdom. Serefina, the princess and daughter of the Regina, Isabella, is expected to promise herself to the realm, and prepare to be the new Regina. But things don’t go as planned. Serefina has strange dreams, callings, and she just isn’t sure about her prince. But when an unexpected force attacks, Serefina is forced to travel across the world in search of answers to these strange dreams.

Alright, getting into it. The world building. The biggest asset this story has. If it weren’t for such a creative setting, I would have pinned this novel into that ‘Basic’ category. But no. This book consists of mermaids, yes, but what is most intriguing is the fact that their world is completely created from the Author’s mind. They have their own currency, their own language, their own court system, it’s all so thought out and well written. I couldn’t get over that alone. Not to mention the amount of darkness that this story has. There were parts of this book where I actually had to stop and put the book down to think about what just happened, or to gawk and think ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’. It’s wonderful. It’s almost impossible to not want to try and research this civilization and learn more about how they live and where they came from. But aside from world building, let’s look at the plot. It wasn’t like a boring princess and prince story, or where the princess is discovering herself(Well, she is, but it’s not as regal as it usually is.) We have our princess, who is struggling with immense amounts of loss, and yet, she’s going on, and she’s trying to defeat an evil that is so powerful, it has already once destroyed the world. And the best thing? SHE DOESN’T FALL IN LOVE WITH A HUMAN. At least I hope she doesn’t in the next two books….

So now, let’s go into characters. I’ll start with our background characters, the ones who don’t appear for more than a few chapters. Even as background characters, they each have their own personality, and their own history, and it’s great. I admire a writer who can sit and make their background characters just as important as the main characters. But when you can make you main characters wonderful, I can’t even begin to contain my excitement when I love a main character. I LOVE Serefina. She is so undeniably sassy, and so brave and powerful, she is the epitome of every teenage girl. I don’t know about you, but I think that the most important thing is to be able to connect your characters to the similar age group, or the age group that you’re targeting. And what is a powerful main character without a quirky best friend who doesn’t know her own strength and importance? Neela is just as well thought out as Serefina is, and it’s amusing to see how well they mesh together. We don’t see much of our other main characters in book one, but I’m sure that these characters will be included in book two: Becca, Ava, Ling, Astrid, Mahdi, Yazeed and Blu. (SPOILER ALERT) Why did I include Blu? Because Sera thinks about him several times in this book and I’m almost positive that he is Mahdi. Or has some kind of resemblance or SOMETHING with Mahdi. But that’s just a hope and dream, and probably isn’t true…

As for the dump paragraph that I should include, the only thing I can really put down about this book is the fact that at points it was a bit cheesy, and it seemed like it was being written for a younger age group. It didn’t bother me really, but I kind of rolled my eyes, or found it a bit hard to get through some of the chapters, but I persevered and I am very glad that I did because it was worth it.

This book is recommended for all age groups, but if you’re into mythical creatures, sea creatures, magic, or even some form of mythology, I think you’ll find what you’re looking for in this book. It’s a decently quick read if you can find time to sit down and get into it, which I’m sure won’t be a problem, it grabbed me in the first three chapters.