A Little Mermaid: A Retelling of the Little Mermaid by Aya Ling
Fantasy. 190 Pages. 4 Stars
Synopsis:
All Clio wants is to make her crush—a fellow merman prince—notice her. She isn’t interested in the people on land, much less a certain Prince Lukas, who was stupid enough to fall off a ship on his birthday. But when a bumbling fairy godfather misunderstands her, Clio finds herself in the worst situation imaginable—stranded on land with her tail and voice gone.
And her troubles are just beginning. Not only must Clio learn how to behave like a human, but she also needs to discover the identity of a mysterious assassin, all while guarding herself against flirtatious advances from Lukas, the very person she wants to avoid.
A Little Mermaid is a romantic fairy tale novella. It can be read on its own, but is more fun when read as a part of the Entwined Tales, a series of interconnected fairy tales by six different authors. Each story follows the adventures of one of seven children from the same family as they seek out their own happily ever afters in spite of their reluctant fairy-godfather.
My Review:
This is the fifth book of the Entwined Tales, but it didn’t really focus on any of the woodcutter children as the previous four books have. Martin, one of the seven children, did appear as a secondary character, but it wasn’t his story. Mortimer did play a heavy role in the story, which is the best tie-in to the others that there is. That said, the following review is of the book on it’s own and separate from the series.
The Little Mermaid is one of my favorite fairy tales and the nods to the original tale were nice, though loosely applied. I liked how Ling depicted Clio’s journey learning to walk. She struggled with it and didn’t have the sudden ability to be graceful and lovely in her stride, but she slowly and diligently worked to master the skill and reattain her previous grace. I liked the dancing aspect, as I am a dancer myself. Other elements of the plot that made the story its own were quite intriguing and I did very much like the little bit of mystery thrown in there. I can honestly say that I didn’t see the twist coming and was pleasantly surprised when it did. As for characters, I liked Clio and Lukas. Lukas made me smile and Clio was new in that she was a reluctant participant in the whole story. I enjoyed the beginning where we got to see some of her sisters and the princes from the other mer-kingdom. Clio’s sister was cute and loyal, which added to the cast. The setting was varied as Clio came from the sea and then discovered the palace and village. Although none of the setting was particularly vibrant, neither was it dull.
My biggest problem with the book was the writing. I found several issues with the writing, mostly grammatical, but also including a few unclear sections and some minor inconsistencies in the story itself. Most of the story stuff worked itself out eventually, but it was very convoluted and not very well handled, in my opinion. The book could have used a little cleaning up, but it wasn’t unreadable. I’ve read far worse, and didn’t find it difficult to read except in a few places. It wasn’t terribly poorly written, but it did give me the distinct impression that the writer may not have been a native English speaker.
When’s all said and done, it didn’t really feel like it didn’t belong to the Entwined world, but it didn’t really feel like it belonged to the series either. I did enjoy the read well enough, but won’t be clamoring to pursue the author’s other works right away either. Eventually, I think I might check some of her stuff out cause the story was good, but the writing was kind of a turn off. There was one mild swear word that totally caught me by surprise, clean romance, and some very mild violence.
More:
Book 1 in the Entwined Tales is A Goose Girl: A Retelling of The Goose Girl by K. M. Shea (4 Stars)
Book 2 in the Entwined Tales is An Unnatural Beanstalk: A Retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk by Brittany Fichter (4 Stars)
Book 3 is A Bear’s Bride by Shari L. Tapscott (4 Stars)
Book 4 is A Beautiful Curse: A Retelling of The Frog Bride by Kenley Davidson (5 Stars)
Book 6 is An Inconvenient Princess: A Retelling of Rapunzel by Melanie Cellier (5 Stars)
I have rated and reviewed each of the above on Goodreads. Check out the links for more information.
The books are best read in order, though I guess technically they can each stand on their own.
On GraceBought:
Be sure to check out the reviews for the previous books in the series here on GraceBought! And stay tuned for the final review next week!
A Goose Girl, An Unnatural Beanstalk, A Bear’s Bride, and A Beautiful Curse