I need to warn you that there are intense themes of female oppression and abuse. If that makes you uncomfortable, I would recommend not reading this book and skipping this book review.
So, this book won't be published until July 30, 2019, I think. The amazon page is a little screwy and keeps displaying a different cover, sometimes, and claims the book has already been published. However, I got my hands on uncorrected proof version of this book, which will undoubtedly have differences between the published edition. Whatever that may be.
An amazon summary (which the link, if you click to the different versions of the book, will send you down an odd path), "A dark and beautiful reimagining of The Little Mermaid.
Deep beneath the sea, off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of freedom from her controlling father. On her first swim to the surface, she is drawn towards a human boy. She longs to join his carefree world, but how much will she have to sacrifice? What will it take for the little mermaid to find her voice? Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans in the UK. A book with the darkest of undercurrents, full of rage and rallying cries: storytelling at its most spellbinding." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Muirgen, whose true name is Gaia, but everyone calls her Muirgen at the insistence of the sea king, is the youngest of her six sisters. They're mermaids who live in a kingdom underwater and are greatly oppressed by the king and really all the men, day in and day out. They are given many stipulations about how to live their life from the way they speak, act, and present themselves in general. In the beginning chapters, they literally sew pearls into their tails (FLESH) to appease their father.
There is a rule within the kingdom that no one can approach the surface before their fifteenth birthday. Muirgan, being the youngest, has had to watch her sisters go to the surface or go off to see lightning storms without her. This is also an incredibly big deal because their mother went to the surface and was captured by humans and killed on Muirgan's first birthday.
Muirgan is also the prettiest amongst her sisters, and has been betrothed to a foul man of her father's choosing (for it is a mermaids duties to appease their father I guess).
There's also a peace between the merfolk and the Sea Witch that the Sea King established with Muirgen's mother years ago. The merfolk and the Salka (drowned vengeful women the Sea Witch watches over) were at war for a long time I guess (they didn't get too far into it in the book because it was already over, peace and all that jazz).................
Muirgen is desperate to escape from her life. She's always been unhappy and finds herself looking to the surface to try to understand why her mother left all those years ago (she's 14 in the book).
That's enough summary.
This book is supposed to be a feminist anthem of sorts I guess. I find it very problematic though.
Normally, I try not to give away the major plot points of a story, especially if it hasn't been published yet. But, I'm going to give some very generic plot point accomplishments to effectively talk about why the feminist themes presented are problematic to me.
Muirgen meets the Sea Witch who gives a speech about why everything the Sea King forbades them from doing actually isn't bad. Muirgen is liked shocked, but doesn't care as all she wants to do is go to the surface to see the human boy she rescued in a storm. Muirgen gives her a potion to turn her human, but every day her feet will feel like they're falling apart and be incredibly painful. Muirgen is like, don't care, want man. Sea Witch is like, oh btw, there's a time limit and the boy has to love you or else you die. Muirgen, doesn't care, sacrifices voice for potion, goes to surface, drinks potion, becomes human.
Muirgen meets boy, boy makes sure she's taken care of, Muirgen meets boy's family, understands family positions, sympathy for mom, dislikes boys friends, realizes boy isn't actually all that great, constantly bloody feet, awful times with bloody feet, on last day of being human/before death day, sisters arrive to offer her life by using a knife to kill boy. Muirgen is like kay, can't do it, Sea Witch shows up, is like LOL mermaids gots powers yo, how do you think your mother transformed into a human (which is a drastic thing to introduce so way late in the book, why), Muirgen is like I cannot kill boy, Sea Witch is like LOL I know just become a Salka instead, Muirgen is like uhhhhhh, Sea King arrives to berate and abuse sisters while also realizing Muirgen is still alive, Muirgen AS A HUMAN, taps into her mermaid powers to make the Sea King leave her sisters alone, and decides to become a Salka afterall.
.......so like, the feminist themes in here are problematic because, the Sea Witch, back when she gave the potion to Muirgen, removed her tongue as part of the potion making process. She didn't tell her about her mother or mermaids having powers or anything, she just kind of like, wellllllll if that's what you wantttttttttttttt, and makes it happen. So she's not really looking out for Muirgen's best interest at all, she's also partly a villain in this story.
For two, Muirgen basically goes all murdery at the end of the book anyways, but towards the mermen in the kingdom. Like, she figured out her power and decided she was going to use that to make sure the men felt all the same horrors and atrocities that they did. This is extremely problematic because it doesn't solve any of the problems of mistreatment, it would only make them worse overall. An eye for an eye and the entire world ends up blind. If this was a truly feminist book, I would have liked to see Muirgen try to find a way to be a man's equal rather than their oppressors.
How the last chapter of the book plays out is also utterly ridiculous. Like Muirgen realizes why it was a terrible idea to pine after the boy in the first place, realizes she knew nothing about him in the first place, and then just kind of shrugs that whole episode off. That's not actually growth. That's like a super delayed epiphany.
I really just think that one of the big selling for this book was being feminist, and re-imagining the little mermaid. I think it would have been better overall, if instead of getting the potion from the Sea Witch, she joined forces with the Sea Witch to create a better underwater kingdom for everyone overall. Like, the middle of the story, she could have just been like, halp make mah life and everyone else's better plz, and the Sea Witch, if she actually believed what she was saying, would have been like WHOOP WHOOP LET'S DO DIS THANG....and a much better story could have progressed. Like the Sea Witch actually telling her about her powers then and there and opened up a whole new world for Muirgen. She could have started correcting the imbalances within the kingdom and like gone up to the surface to see the boy whenever she wanted because whatever, lady powers that don't require potion which puts me in constant torture.
So, you may also be wondering why I even bothered to finish reading this book. The language of the writing was so crazy good that I just kept going. I don't know what happened, like maybe I was just in a trance, but seriously, the book contents were kind of whack.
Bottom line: In a feminist book, the goal should be equality amongst everyone.
Happy reading!
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