Follow Friday + End of Mermaid Challenge

So the Summer Mermaid Reading Challenge is officially over! Below is the last of the mermaid reviews for me! In 14 weeks I read 15 mermaid books. They are listed below along with their reviews. I had the impression that lots of mermaid books were very badly written, but either I just got lucky or that's not true. Don't get me wrong: there were a few that didn't impress me, but overall I really loved all the mermaid books I read. I got to read lots of great books and was introduced to tons of new, amazing authors! Among my favorites were Jackson Pearce's Fathomless, Jenn Reese's Above World and Anna Bank's Of Poseidon. Some I wasn't as impressed with were Elizabeth Fama's Monstrous Beauty and Brenda Pandos's Everblue.

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson -- My Review

Seven Tears Into the Sea by Terri Farley -- My Review

Forgive my Fins by Terra Lynn Childs  -- My Review

Fins are Forever by Terra Lynn Childs -- My Review

Above World by Jenn Reese -- My Review

Mirage by Jenn Reese -- My Review

Florence by Ciye Cho -- My Review

Sea Change by Amiee Friedman -- My Review

The Forbidden Sea by Sheila A. Nielson -- My Review

Fathomless by Jackson Pearce -- My Review

The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler -- My Review

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama -- My Review

Madly by M. Leighton -- My Review

I didn't have quite as much participation as I'd hoped, so I won't be doling out the prizes quite as originally announced. However, I do have prizes to hand out. They are listed below! Congrats to those who get them and thanks so much to everyone who participated. I hope you all had as good a time as I did reading about mermaids and their worlds!

Prize Bundles are as follows:

Anya of On Starships and Dragonwings wins: A copy of Alice Hoffman's Aquamarine, Fairies and Princesses Quickdraw book, Splash DVD, The Little Mermaid DVD, mermaid swag.

Jackie of No Bent Spines wins: Copy of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid, Splash DVD, Copy of Persistence of Vision, mermaid swag.

Katelynn of Literary Chameleon wins: Copy of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid, Faerie Tale Theater's The Little Mermaid DVD, copy of Persistence of Vision, mermaid swag.

Source

Everblue by Brenda Pandos

Everblue by Brenda Pandos was...Everblue by Brenda Pandos was the last mermaid read of my challenge. I really didn't have time to read it, but I decided to squeeze it in come hell or high water, because I found it free on Amazon and I thought it would be stupid not to include it. 

Overall, this book was pretty good, but not great. I wasn't disappointed, per se, but I just wasn't wowed either. 

There were two POVs in this book. They were that of the main male and female characters, who are one another's love interests. This book did the thing where both POVs are first person, but they're different people. This is a growing trend in YA, and I've especially seen it a lot in the mermaid reads. I gotta say, I'm not a fan. Even when it's done really well--and often it isn't--I just find it jarring to jump first person heads like that. It always takes me right out of the story. But, that's just me. Lots of people don't mind it.

I thought the book could have used more description, especially of the mer world. And I didn't see a lot of differentiation between the male and female voice. Not that the male was femmy or anything, but if not for doing different things in the plot, it would have been hard to tell character voices apart. It would have been stronger if they'd been more distinct.

That said, it certainly wasn't terrible. Anyone who likes mermaid reads, YA romances, etc. would probably enjoy it. And I'll admit that I kept turning pages because I genuinely wanted to know what would happen next in the plot. It wasn't an oh-my-gosh-I-just-have-to-see-what-happens-next thing, but it was good enough that I was curious.

So, nothing to rave about, but still decent. I'm glad I read it, for the challenge if nothing else. Overall, though, my review is just, meh. 

Follow Friday

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers -- but you have to know -- the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!

How does this work? First you leave your name here on this post, (using the linky tools -- keep scrolling!) then you create a post on your own blog that links back to this post (easiest way is to just grab the code under the #FF picture and put it in your post) and then you visit as many blogs as you can and tell them "hi" in their comments (on the post that has the #FF image). You follow them, they follow you. Win. Win. Just make sure to follow back if someone follows you!

Book selfie! Snap a picture of you and your current read! 

Yup, you guys get to see me without makeup. I should care more but...yeah I really don't.

So I'm technically not reading this yet, but it's the one I'm about to start. My sister is getting married in two days, so I'm really not going to get any reading done this weekend. But, come Monday, I have a date with Cassandra Clare. Yea!

My finger is sort of covering it, but if you can't tell, that's City of Ashes.

So, what's your current read?

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