Wednesday, 30 January 2013

Book review: Of Poseidon by Anna Banks

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...
I'll start by saying: I did enjoy this book, but not as much as I'd thought I would. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I will continue. I think a big part of the reason I was a little disappointed in this book was because it was mainly set on land, and when I say mainly I mean that Emma - the female lead - only really "visited" the ocean two or three times, and never to the Syrena kingdom. I had expected for the book to take place in the water, that was what I had wanted to read. So it kind of ruined it a little for me when the characters always walked around on solid ground. Another big part that was negative to me was that no one even thought about the fact that Emma could be what she is until at least two thirds into the book. Personally, as soon as they started talking about how Emma was like Syrena in some aspects, but not in others, I kind of went "well, she's obviously half, then". Maybe I've just read to much YA fantasy involving different kinds of hybrids, but to me it was obvious.
I started reading this book on the bus on my way to school one morning. Big mistake. I obviously knew that there was going to be a shark attack, but I hadn't though about it enough to realise when in the book it was. I had just kind of though it'd be a bit into the book, and that it'd be one of those where a shark comes to a beach and everyone's freaking out but nothing really happens. Oh, was I wrong. You see, I hate sharks, they scare me to death, and I did not expect it to show up almost instantly. The shark attack wasn't necessarily a very scary scene, but when Emma and Chloe were out on that surfboard away from everyone else, and Chloe accuse Emma of kicking her, I got so scared. I almost had to put the book away, and all of a sudden I was sure there was a shark under my seat. It was terrifying. So, if you're afraid of sharks, I advice you to read the first three and a half chapters in the middle of your bed - with no arms or legs over the edge.
A thing that annoyed me was "ohmysweetgodness", which Emma said/though at least a dozen times in the first half of the book. I don't even get what it means, to me it sounds like she is excited, but most of the times she thought it she was angry. Luckily it got better and in the second half of the book it was only mentioned once or twice. Everyone - well, Emma, Galen, and Rayna - were unnecessarily aggressive. Somewhere it was mentioned that it was a Syrena trait, but it was still a little unsettling, considering Emma threatened to/though about murdering different people a bunch of times.
Even though all these not-so-positive-things were in the book, I still liked it. Emma and Galen were really cute together (even though they were both oblivious to each others feelings), Rayna was really entertaining (even though she was a bitch at the beginning), and Toraf was just amazing (even though he wanted to mate with Rayna without her consent). And that's not mentioning the huge cliffhanger. It was almost like a slap in the face, even though I'd though there was something fishy (hey, look how funny I am) about her for a while. I don't know if I'd go as far as to say this cliffhanger was in style with a Riordan Cliffhanger, but almost.
Out of five stars, I gave it three on goodreads, because even though I didn't really feel like that much was happening I still thought it was good. And I need to read Of Triton soon, because I need to know what happens.

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