Reviews of Between The Land And The Sea

** spoiler alert ** Marina is a very lucky girl. She has a renowned scientist as a father, she travels a lot, she has a rich "aunt" who pampers her with high couture clothing, accessories, shoes, etc., she lives with an aunt and cousin who care a lot for her, she meets a handsome surfer who is going to fall in love with her. Besides that, she is part of a mystery, an adventure that envelopes her. This is the story of Marina, a girl who has everything she wants and so easily conferred upon her.

It was far too easy for Marina: meeting Ethan, looking good with all her high-end clothing and shoes, being strong as she is and fending off the "mean beach girls" who bully Cruz and Megan. Marina is the archetype of every teenager's dream: rich, talented, beautiful, mysterious, and the hottest surfer after her. It was sickening...slightly.

I found myself rolling my eyes whenever Marina spoke with such eloquence about what she was wearing and the accessories that came with it. Honestly, I didn't care. The author made Marina seemed like she didn't care about fashion too, but her actions and descriptive words pointed to a different direction. Marina did care and that score a point against her in my eyes.

Ethan, the stereotypical handsome surfer who falls in love with the new girl in town. He is unlike the rest of the surfers he hangs out with and he is deeply concerned about Marina. I just wished there was more dynamics to the romance stories nowadays. This "love" story between Marina and Ethan has been told and regurgitated so many times that is getting old. I just wished the author had come up with something entirely different for both of them. Or have Ethan be something else than a hot surfer. In a sense, I felt the author was also stereotyping California as being the land of hot surfers and beautiful, but bitchy, beach girls with short bikinis. It was all so annoying. I live in California and that is not true.

As I mentioned before, everything came so easy for Marina. It is almost unrealistic.

As for the plot, the mystery was alluring, but I was hoping for more mystery as to Marina keeping the secret for herself instead of telling everybody she knew about it. It just killed the suspense. I got bored when Marina was drowned so many times and rescued as well. I believe that was what I read most of the time. In the last part, when she was pulled into the ocean by the group of mermaids, she got turned into one. But Naida relinquished on Marina giving her a period of 50 moons to decide if she wanted to give up immortality. I think the mermaids let her go way too easily despite the fact that the mermaids wanted to get her into the ocean so vehemently. I just think there are serious inconsistencies in the plot.

I also thought it was all very predictable. I wasn't surprised at the twists (if there were any that is). And wasn't surprised at the characters' attitudes and personalities among each other. I knew those type of characters because they're all stereotypes repeated over and over again in supernatural, young adult fiction!

As for the way the book is structured and where the writing style is concerned... I think the author used way too many words that could've been expressed in less. Translated, that means that this book was unnecessarily long. There were a lot of needless descriptions that only showed me Marina's shallowness. To be honest, I skimmed over some paragraphs of the book and in the end, I felt I understood the essence of the story without reading those paragraphs. The dialogues were what I aimed to read the most because I discovered so much through them. I honestly didn't need to know every single detail of their action. Sometimes you have to let the reader wander off with details.

The mermaids are nice creatures in the book. But mythology says that they lure and drown sailors (like Peter Pan). This wasn't the case. They were nice creatures. I was a bit thrown off by this part because the author twisted the mermaids to make it conform to a typical young adult novel. It was like having a vampire who doesn't die in the sun, but sparkles in it. Utter nonsense. It would have been more thrilling to have the mermaids wanted to threatened Marina's life than being all innocent about it.

Last but not least. The romance. Ugh. I've read this type of romance all over again. Sacrifices? Love beyond everything? To sacrifice eternal life for someone you love? This is a noble act of love, but I've read about it in almost every supernatural, young adult novel. It just doesn't change, does it? And to topple it off, a surfer had to be included in the picture. Not just any kind of surfer, but the "good" type of surfer guy. I found myself hating Ethan rather than loving him for his gentleman-like personality and warm attitudes. Every girl's dream? I don't think so.

I hope all the best for Marina in the second installment.

On a final note, I would not cataloged this as fantasy.

I was super excited to read a fantasy book about Mermaids. Unfortunately this is one of those books which makes you think why on earth did I even start this Book. The topic is good and I was expecting more out of it but unfortunately I was disappointed with the outcome. The story has a good pace and the characters are much much better then the usual YA books or Chic Lit books. Still the way the story was built the end was really disappointing, it actually felt that the author was told to please finish the 1st part asap.
The worst part is there is nothing in this book that will make me read the 2nd part. There is no intrigue at all; the end is the end that's it. I don't think I would have known that there is a 2nd part if it was not mentioned at the start.
Hopefully the 2nd part will be better then this.