Author: Anna Banks
Series: Of Poseidon #1
Publisher: Feiwel & FriendsPublishing Date: May 22nd 2012
My Rating: 3.5 cups
Blurb (from Goodreads):
Galen is the prince of the Syrena, sent to land to find a girl he's heard can communicate with fish. Emma is on vacation at the beach. When she runs into Galen — literally, ouch! — both teens sense a connection. But it will take several encounters, including a deadly one with a shark, for Galen to be convinced of Emma's gifts. Now, if he can only convince Emma that she holds the key to his kingdom . . .
Told from both Emma and Galen's points of view, here is a fish-out-of-water story that sparkles with intrigue, humor, and waves of romance.
First of all, let me tell you how much I love the cover! It's just gorgeous, though I would have wanted to see Galen represented there as well. Though the fact that the girl has bubbles around her and (I'm assuming) she's swimming is the number one reason why I wanted desperately to read this book. Okay, now that I got that out of the way, I can go on with my review :P
The book starts in a pretty sad way. I was almost in tears after the first few pages. Thank God there was Galen to help get me out of that mood LOL! While I like a book that doesn't stall too much in the beginning, I felt as though the first chapters were a little too sad.
Speaking of Galen. He's a hottie. And a prince :D He's also a sort of ambassador between Syrenas and humans. Though for someone with his role, I felt as though Galen lacked a certain level of people skills. His knowledge about humans and their culture was at times too low for my tastes. But he makes up for that by being hot and cute. Oh, and really considerate at times. And patient with Emma, patience that I feel I couldn't have had with her.
Emma doesn't know about her being a Syrena. She thinks she's just a normal girl, that went through a rough summer. What struck me as completely odd was her relationship with her mother. At times I felt as though they were more like friends than mother and daughter. It wasn't that they were friends the fact that sort of bothered me, but the fact that Emma's mom acted more like a teenager sometimes. And other times I could really feel that she was a good mother and that she loved Emma and wanted to be the best mother for her, so maybe acting like a teenager was a way for her to keep Emma close I guess.
There were some funny scenes in this book. Very funny and they made me laugh a lot. I loved Emma's snarky remarks. Galen had a few of those funny moments. I also liked the mythology of this world. It was really interesting and seeing how both Triton and Poseidon are part of this world and explaining the difference and all that.
The ending blew me away. There was a moment when I thought that that could be the ending, but then I thought "nah, it can't be". So in a way it took me by surprise. And the ending is more abrupt and forceful than I expected. It sort of stays true to the beginning of the book. And it was teasing enough to make me want to read the next one. I'm curious about the next book in the series. Will we be getting Galen's POV this time, or continue with Emma's? I'd love to have a series with alternating POV. I felt like we were in Emma's head too much, I'd like to see most of the action told with Galen's words and feelings. Also, I want to see the cover :D
