The Vicious Deep
By Zoraida Córdova
~Book Review~
THE MERMAID
CRAZE in YA fantasy inevitably began after our love affair with contemporary, everyday
vampires who “just want to fit in.” Well, mermaids want to hang out in high
school forever, too. I’ve had some hits and misses with mermaid books. Lost Voices by Sarah Porter was cool because it was a haunting story about
sisterhood, where innocent drowned girls turned savage after “death.” Of Poseidon by Anna Banks was less my thing because I found the characters stereotypical
and the plot contrived. I worried the same thing would happen with The Vicious Deep but I was pleasantly surprised. This is a fun story, and I want to see
how the trilogy turns out.
Tristan Hart
gets sucked out to sea by a tidal wave. He survives, but now he is haunted by
dreams of a vicious silver mermaid. The sea holds the answers, and Tristan will
need them—especially after he grows a fish tail in the bathtub. With the help
of his best friend and long-time crush, Layla, Tristan dives deep into an
underwater kingdom full of wonder and peril.
You don’t
usually read stories about a teenage guy turning into a mermaid—excuse me,
merman. That caught my interest. Also, Tristan was funny and endearing. His
awkward conversation with his stoic mentor, Kurt, about where their junk goes
and how they get it on as mermen was pretty entertaining. He’s very determined
and protective of his family and friends. Overall, he’s a nice change in the
genre from the typical outcast, woe-is-me type hero. He reminds me of a more
grown-up version of Percy Jackson.
Layla, his love
interest, was kind of a let-down. It’s very difficult for fantasy authors to
introduce a “normal human” as a main character and keep them that way without
them becoming useless. Oftentimes they end up as helpless objects that the hero
must save. Although the author attempted to empower Layla by having her face
down other merfolk with her attitude and “athletic” skills, I wasn’t buying it.
Luckily Gwen and Thalia were awesome.
The
world-building felt a bit jumbled and underdeveloped. The author had just
introduced this cool underwater kingdom of the merfolk to us—but suddenly there
were witches and vampires and werewolves and what-have-you running around, too.
It felt unnecessary and took attention away from developing the merfolk world.
The villainous
silver mermaid doesn’t do much besides stalk Tristan in this book, but she’s
intriguing enough to make me want to continue the series. Overall, this book is
adventurous underwater quest fun.
Recommended for
Fans of: Julie Kagawa, Richelle Mead, Rick Riordan
Upcoming Book
Review: The Young Elites by Marie Lu
