The Seafarer's Kiss

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 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 show more 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 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, show more 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 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 show more 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

This review and others posted over at my blog.

I saw this book somewhere online and once I heard there was a lesbian mermaid, I was on board.

Ersel and her clan live in a glacier in the north (after some war that no one really remembers where they were outlawed away from the nice, warm tropical water) and enjoys foraging for forbidden human artifacts from the shipwrecks of the Vikings and whalers that end up sinking after crashing into the many glaciers and ice shelves. Sound a little familiar? There are a lot of Ariel-esque characteristics about Ersel’s life, however, she’s still an individual and I enjoyed the new twist on an old favorite.

The familiar references aside (like a trident-wielding king, contact with humans being show more forbidden, someone ending up with octopus tentacles instead of legs and a different take on voice stealing), Ersel’s people worship Norse gods and Loki plays a fairly large part in this story – a mermaid/Loki crossover story was not something I ever thought I’d encounter, so that was fun. They also have some limited magical powers, like the ability to emit an intense heat from their scales (and possibly healing? That bit was only mentioned once so I’m not sure…), but in order to charge this ability, they must bask in the sunlight each day, because living in a glacier away from daylight saps their energy.

Ersel’s society is very focused on breeding, under the rule of their current king, because they extreme cold of the water they live in makes it harder for their eggs to survive. To find out which females are most fertile (and thus, most desirable) there’s an egg-counting ceremony held each year for girl who’ve reached the age of nineteen. Ersel has always dreamed of leaving the glacier and exploring the world, specifically the human-inhabited one, and she feels an immense pressure from her little society because she doesn’t want to be confined to a cave with her mate, forced to raise brood after brood of eggs, should she prove fertile. I thought this was an interesting aspect (and a socially relevant topic) especially when she is later congratulated by her childhood friend and potential mate (“I’m so proud,” he says) as if that’s something she can actually control. Ersel doesn’t think a merwoman’s value lies in her egg count and this puts her at odds with almost everyone in her community, except her mother, who I was glad to see was supportive of Ersel’s uncommon views.

I do think the relationship between Ersel and Ragna could have used some more development. This is a fairly short book and I wish more time had been spent exploring how these two teens came to feel so strongly for each other. It felt more like an infatuation than a strong relationship. Some of Ersel’s daily adventures felt repetitive and those scenes could have been better spent adding depth to her and Ragna’s unusual friendship turned relationship. Their dialogue could have used some more given and take and more hesitation. That being said, I was totally into merm kisses and I think this book could have had even more smooching.

I do have a few nitpicks (aside from the length and slight lack of character development) regarding Ersel’s world. I’m obviously willing to suspend a good portion of my belief in order to accept this mermaid society the book has going. Food plays a big part in the mermaids’ lives, as they need to gain fat for heat and energy storage, and Ersel spends a lot of time eating or thinking about food. That’s fine, but several times when the food was described “powered” and “dusted” were used in regards to seasonings. All I could think of was Spongebob having a campfire under water. Like, how do you have a powdered ingredient on your shark fin? How would it even stay on? Wouldn’t the constant movement of the water wash off whatever powder didn’t dissolve? I also wondered if Ersel had sharp teeth since the mermaids mostly eat raw fish. I feel like that would have been a nice detail to talk about, something that perhaps scares Ragna at first. If she doesn’t have sharp teeth…well…then that doesn’t make sense to me.

The language was also fairly modern (which I know happens in a lot of books and I’m not saying everyone should write like Shakespeare because I can’t understand that stuff anyway) and at times it was bothersome. They clearly don’t live in today’s world and yet the mermaids used phrases like “super quiet” and “we’re screwed” and they felt jarring. Fortunately, it didn’t happen often, but cutting out little phrases like that would have gone a long way to making it feel more authentic in regards to setting.

Overall, this is a really solid YA fantasy, and one of the rare ones I enjoyed! If you’re looking for a quick summer read with plus-size merms who like to kiss ladies, androgynous Norse gods, a little bit of action and lots of tentacles, then I think you’ll enjoy this book. show less

Going into this book I had a feeling I was going to really like it. There's not enough mermaid books but I tend to really love them when I read them. This book did not disappoint! My only possible complaint would be that I could have used a little more romance but that's just my personal preference.

I think there's a lot in this book that would appeal to a lot of people. There's a young girl that doesn't want to fall into the expectations of society. She thinks she deserves more than just to make babies for their population (and rightfully so!). She also falls in love with someone outside her race, which is completely illegal in this book. She also thinks that something has to be done about the tyrant in power. There's a lot going on show more but it all works together into one great plot.

We also see the main character grow throughout the story. She starts off knowing what she wants but she's not sure how to get it. Eventually she goes against her society and gets kicked out but that's when she starts to figure out that things are wrong even if she's the only one that think that. It's a message to us all to speak up when we know something is wrong.

The short: this is a must read for any fans of YA fantasy! show less

I've made it a goal to read more YA this summer and I'm so glad I started with this book! It's a wonderful story, well-written and well-populated with interesting characters. I loved the mythology the author developed for her world, and I loved the lack of genre tropes--love triangles, lovestruck heroines, etc.

My only criticism would be the pacing. I felt that, towards the end, the plot became incredibly rushed and certain developments were given just a few paragraphs or so when I wanted much more. I feel like the book was tilted very heavily in favor of the beginning rather than the end, and that impacted the action/plot points that were presented later in the work.

Other than that, I enjoyed reading this book so much. I enjoyed how no show more one was wholly right or wrong, and how the issues of doing what you must to survive are addressed by the characters. Definitely recommend! show less

4.25

a thoroughly entertaining read. I loved this take on the little mermaid story. Although I did take issue with some of the violence that took place in a couple of the relationships (and seemed to be passed over), overall it was still a very good story. I liked the diversity, and I did appreciate how gender and sexuality were treated in this story. I could see myself picking this book up again.