Book Review - Mermaid Moon by Susann Cokal

Photo Credit - Amazon

Sanna is a mermaid but, she is half landish. When Sanna was born, an old sea witch cast a forgetting spell that made Sanna, her mother, her father, and her people forget the details of her birth including her mother. When Sanna turns sixteen years old, she decides to find her mother as she feels like an outsider in her seavish flok. Determined to find her roots and identity, she apprentices herself to the sea witch who cast the spell on her and her family.

After learning the magic to make a pair of legs for herself, she decides to follow the clues to the location of her mother. Before she leaves, the sea witch gives her a cryptic quest to complete. As Sanna begins her journey, her flok wait for her news on her journey. While on land, Sanna comes across a village who is desperate for a miracle and a baroness who will stop at nothing to live forever.

I was quite torn with this review. I thought the novel was beautifully written but, then at times, it was just too much. I was more than 85% done with the book before I couldn't be bothered anymore. The story progressed so slowly that the story didn't even progress in 50 pages. It was mostly 50 pages of atmosphere building or Sanna debating what to do or the sea life that lives on the old witch's body. I wasn't a fan of the different points of view because I felt like it added little to the story. I wanted to enjoy this book more because I love a good tale. I am still looking forward to other books by the author.

**Disclosure - I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion. This post may contain affiliate links which means I earn advertising and/or referral fees if you purchase an item through my link. Please note, there will be no extra charges to you. Thank you for your support.**

Book Spotlight - Mermaid Moon by Susann Cokal

Hardcover: 496 pages
Publisher: Candlewick (March 3, 2020)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1536209597
ISBN-13: 978-1536209594

Praise for MERMAID MOON

“Susann Cokal’s latest miracle, Mermaid Moon, springs from the tides where Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid once swam — and walked to land. But she delivers something even more rich and strange, and a mermaid heroine who will swim away with your heart.” —Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Egg & Spoon

“Cokal's moody and sea-drenched tale weaves touches of Hans Christian Andersen with a dash of Pied Piper, using language that gorgeously sets each scene, including the exceedingly creepy bone vault … Lyrical, complex, and occasionally dark.” —School Library Journal

“Cokal creates a well-developed matriarchal mermaid mythology in which women couple, bonded by love and respect, and men are largely unnecessary. Through several voices and richly detailed prose, these markedly different worlds overlap and diverge to impart a nuanced exploration of power, family, faith, and love.” —Publishers Weekly

“Mermaid Moon is an action-packed tale of parental abandonment, familial longing, treachery and dark magic with an appealingly determined heroine.” —BookPage

“A beautifully told, immersive story that layers fairy-tale elements with more modern themes, allowing for a different experience with every reread.” —Shelf Awareness

In the far northern reaches of civilization, a mermaid leaves the sea to look for her land-dwelling mother among people as desperate for magic and miracles as they are for life and love.

Blood calls to blood; charm calls to charm.
It is the way of the world.
Come close and tell us your dreams.
—The Mermaids

Sanna has been living as a mermaid — but she is only half seavish. The night of her birth, a sea-witch cast a spell that made Sanna’s people, including her landish mother, forget how and where she was born.



Now Sanna is sixteen and an outsider in the seavish flok where women rule and mothers mean everything. She is determined to go to land and learn who she is. So she apprentices herself to the ancient witch, Sjældent, to learn the magic of making and unmaking. With a new pair of legs and a mysterious quest to complete for her teacher, she follows a clue that leads her ashore on the Thirty-Seven Dark Islands. 

Her fellow mermaids wait floating on the seaskin as Sanna stumbles into a wall of white roses thirsty for blood, a hardscrabble people hungry for miracles, and a baroness of fading beauty who will do anything to live forever, even at the expense of her own children.

From the author of the Michael L. Printz Honor Book The Kingdom of Little Wounds comes a gorgeously told tale of belonging, sacrifice, fear, hope, and mortality.

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Photo Content from Susann Cokal

Susann Cokal is a moody historical novelist, a pop-culture essayist, book critic, magazine editor, and sometime professor of creative writing and modern literature. She lives in a creepy old farmhouse in Richmond, Virginia, with seven cats, a dog, a spouse, and some peacocks that supposedly belong to a neighbor. She is the author of two books for young adults and two for regular adults.

Susann's previous book, The Kingdom of Little Wounds, received several national awards, including a silver medal from the American Library Association's Michael L. Printz Award series. It also got starred reviews in Kirkus, School Library Journal, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, and Publishers Weekly, and praise from Booklist, The New York Times Boook Review, and other venues. It was #3 on the Boston Globe list of best YAs of the 2013 and won an ALAN citation from the National Council of Teachers of English.

      

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