Julia Ember

A BookTuber I like recommended this when it first came out--she'd gotten an ARC, actually, so it was before. She warned about the dating violence and asked why the author had included it. She warned about the negative views about infertility. She warned about the low-level sexism. I was stunned and told myself not to read this book, but was also so curious about it. I checked it out and was swept away, except for the parts the reviewer warned about. Those got me saying rude things about the show more author. This year, I was looking for books with entirely different themes, but the author's last name matches something I was looking for, so it popped up in the search results and I checked it out again, interested to learn if my opinion changed. It did, and for the worse.

Good parts are: that the author knows how to write. She does one of my favorite things: writes about wintertime and icy weather beautifully, and on beaches! The imagery and descriptions were wonderful. She writes about bodies of water in ways that were still new and interesting to me, and I liked how she described these particular mermaids and their world. Onto the other stuff: I was deeply unimpressed with everything else the second time around. Her descriptions of body fluids being expelled into the water and ice, while needed and understandable, I nonetheless found disgusting. A mere mention of--it somehow being cleared away and replaced with a new current or something, would have helped immensely. There are several instances of I'm Not Like Other Girls from the main character. It's a quick way to make me not like a character, and she was the -narrator-. Hers and Ragna's relationship amounted to little more than instalove, which I also don't like. The men in this story were harsh, cruel, and I can't help but wonder why. I felt no attachment to Ersel's mom and thought the story would be stronger if the king had killed her, or a human with a harpoon, or Ersel's childhood friend. It could have been a great device to continue showing their cruelty. That seemed a lot less creepy before I typed it. When Ersel gets tentacles, she whines that she'll never be able to have sex with her girlfriend again...after only knowing her a few days total and sleeping with her twice at most. I just stared incredulously at the book. The author apparently has no idea that tent*cle p*rn exists, nor that it's so popular. In fact, I was -expecting- it both times I read this book because it seemed to be leading into it. Nothing. This time around, I found it hard to believe that Ragna becomes a captain, coded as Captain Hook no less, so fast. I'm short and tend towards the skinny side, so I should have cheered. Instead I tightened my jaw a bit.

Putting a Captain Hook-favored "Peter Pan" retelling with a "Little Mermaid" retelling can actually work excellently. I've seen authors do similar things, and absolutely cheered. Here, it irritated me. Maybe that it was done with so many other stories going on. The trickster god Loki has a huge role in the plot of the fourth story that this novel tries to tell, and on second read, I was exasperated. It didn't help that I couldn't stop picturing the movie counterpart, despite only having seen clips. This was supposed to be a Norse-influenced retelling of "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Anderson, but that story was really short when I read it as a kid. This one feels like a lot of padding and like the author wanted to retell multiple favorite stories of hers at once, when some of them have nothing to do with each other. When I finished this book, I felt really on edge, defensive and super irritated, and couldn't figure out why. I don't intend to read future works of this author's. show less

Now I realised the world was vast and the ocean didn't have to limit me.

The Seafarer's Kiss is a Norse mythology retelling of The Little Mermaid where instead of a sea witch, the main character makes a deal with Loki, god of lies, whose month she was born in.

It actually had much less focus on the love interest than I expected, and more focus on the bisexual main character wanting to get away from an oppressive regime and outplaying the god of trickery. I loved how it was stated explicitly show more several times that while Ragna is neat, Ersel made her choices for herself (and in some cases her mother/community) only.

I know some people have issues with the fact that the only nonbinary character in the book is the literal god of lies and deceit, and those are entirely valid feelings. I definitely would have appreciated more nonbinary characters (and hope that maybe the sequel will be better in this respect?) but I also have a weak spot for Loki. I loved their representation and how they were both angry and impressed when Ersel outsmarted them.

I can't wait to see Ragna's half of the story. show less

I was of two minds about reading this book, and now that I've finally done so, I'm still of two minds.

At first I was excited to read a Little Mermaid-esque story with heavy Norse influences and a medieval setting, especially with the care for detail regarding undersea living that many early reviews mentioned. The cover is gorgeous, too - how could you pass it up, and with a promise of belugas and other northerly setting features? But early reviews also talked about the somewhat tragic plot show more and how the romance thread is secondary to the self-discovery story. I have read several Little Mermaid stories in the last year and have grown tired of the tragedy, so I decided to pass it up for now.

I ended up reading it because it was on the library's new arrivals display and I was frustrated with the lack of appealing f/f stories. Why not try it after all? I was surprised that it was a paperback and so thin, all the praise online made me envision a heftier tome, but it was conveniently right there at the library.

My original opinions still hold: I love that it's set in the far north of the Atlantic Ocean with a heavy dose of medieval Norse mythology. A lot of thought clearly went into what that means for the characters and how that might play out in their motives and subsequent actions. The tragic Little Mermaid story wasn't so bad after all, and I liked the inclusion of Loki's trickster story and the way the characters dealt with them. (I also loved that they are a nonbinary character!)

But for all that...it seemed like the author went only so far in thinking about the setting's realism, then stopped. My suspension of disbelief was constantly being challenged by descriptions or actions that could have been copypasted from a regular contemporary love triangle novel, with only a few descriptors swapped out for undersea living. And, for that matter, I hated the love triangle and could never really understand the main character's motives. Both felt more obligatory than real.

I feel like this book has a lot of promise and could be something great, but it never quite gets there. I'm disappointed because I can see those suggestions of greatness. show less

Probably more of a 3.5.

CW: torture

I’ve been very very excited to read Ruinsong since the first time I saw that gorgeous purple cover and to be honest, I didn’t even bother to read the premise in detail. I just knew I needed this book in my life.

The world the author creates in this book is full of cruelty and fear, and it wasn’t always easy to read. The history of the world, the mythology of the goddesses and the song magic system, the backstory of the current Queen’s ascension and show more the hierarchy of the people in this world is also described wonderfully without ever feeling like an infodump and I found myself quickly get pulled deep into the story. As someone who loves singing despite being a bad singer myself, I loved the magic system even when it was used in grotesque ways.

The plot itself wasn’t very complicated - its a straightforward tale of a tyrant queen and a brewing rebellion to overthrow her. This was mostly a character driven story and hence mostly full of inner monologues and conversations, rather than action. This did make the pacing feel quite slow and as if nothing much was happening, but then everything came to a head too quickly towards the end which felt too simple and unrealistic. Otherwise, the writing itself was easy to get through and while I’m not always comfortable diving into a new fantasy world via the audiobook, the narration of this one was very good and I never found it difficult to understand.

The characters Remy and Cadence are definitely the backbone of this novel. Cadence maybe blessed with powerful magic but what she doesn’t have much is choice in how to exercise it. Her struggle with the tasks that she is assigned and what she is asked to overlook is palpable through the pages, and this theme of how much cruelty one can let go just to ensure one’s survival forms one of the main questions the author asks us through the story. Cadence is a very sympathetic figure and I could really empathize with her fear and her need to heal people after being forced to do horrible things.

Remy on the other hand maybe part of the nobility that is reviled by the queen, but she still has a slightly privilege life and couldn’t always understand the struggle that Cadence was facing. I ofcourse understood her rage at the cruelties her family and her friends faced at the hands of the queen, but I also thought she was slightly harsh in judging Cadence for her choices at various points in the story. But Remy’s character arc highlights the other main theme of the story - how far will one go and sacrifice for the sake of protecting their family. Even when their friendship deepened and it looked like it was becoming something more, I wasn’t sure there was enough trust between them for a long lasting love. But I still enjoyed their interactions a lot and it’s nice to see more sapphic couples in fantasy.

To conclude, this was an enjoyable standalone fantasy with a very cool singing magic system and two female characters with their own kinds of strengths, fighting back against an oppressive system. It maybe slow but this story of resilience and standing up to cruelty is definitely worth a read. But don’t mistake this for a romance novel - you’ll get to see the beginnings of a sapphic relationship but that’s not the crux of this story. show less