Fathomless by Jackson Pearce
pages: 305
released: September 2012
publisher: Little Brown
cover love: ♥♥♥♥♥
Celia Reynolds is the youngest in a set of triplets and the one with the least valuable power. Anne can see the future, and Jane can see the present, but all Celia can see is the past. And the past seems so insignificant — until Celia meets Lo. Lo doesn’t know who she is. Or who she was. Once a human, she is now almost entirely a creature of the sea — a nymph, an ocean girl, a mermaid — all terms too pretty for the soulless monster she knows she’s becoming. Lo clings to shreds of her former self, fighting to remember her past, even as she’s tempted to embrace her dark immortality. When a handsome boy named Jude falls off a pier and into the ocean, Celia and Lo work together to rescue him from the waves. The two form a friendship, but soon they find themselves competing for Jude’s affection. Lo wants more than that, though. According to the ocean girls, there’s only one way for Lo to earn back her humanity. She must persuade a mortal to love her . . . and steal his soul. (from Goodreads)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 9/7/2012 ON BOOKSLIKESTARS.NET
Review:
Jackson Pearce has once again created a unique twist of another retelling story. This time it’s The Little Mermaid. As with the two other books in this series, Fathomless features more of the Reynolds siblings. This time it’s the three and only girls, triplets, who have the powers to see the future, present and past. One night, Celia, the youngest and the seer of the past helps Lo, an ocean girl living beneath the waters just off the coast of Georgia save Jude, a young musician, from drowning. Since then, their lives have become interconnected and it’s up to Celia to find a way to keep Lo on dry land and remember her former self, Naida, the human girl she used to be.
As always, I really enjoyed Jackson Pearce’s writing. This retelling was kind of different from the Hans Christian Andersen story we all know. Lo and her under-the-sea sisters (not really related) used to be human but are now trapped in the ocean though they can’t recall the events that led to this fate. They are beautiful and grow more so the longer they stay in the water. They’re not really “mermaids”, they’re not half girl/half fish; they have legs and just chill on a sunken ship waiting for the day the angels come and take them to the sky. They’ve all tried to sing and seduce men to drown and win back their souls but all have failed. Lo has forgotten who she once was and when Celia and Lo touch, it reveals that her real name is Naida (if you read Sweetly, you know exactly who she is). Celia meets with Lo/Naida more and more, trying to get her to become Naida again fully and never return to the sea. The Lo/Naida “dual/deul personality” aspect drove me crazy. It’s not the book’s fault, I’ve never been a fan of the “another person is living inside me” thing. It’s an over-the-top concept that just turns me off when I find it pop up in my books. I loved Jude, he was cute, funny and I think the author did a great job portraying his love triangle with Celia and Lo/Naida. She showed how he could equally be attracted to them both in a non-douchebag way. Celia’s sisters were okay but kind of annoying sometimes. I feel like all their powers should’ve been incorporated more into the ending. And of course the Fenris make an appearance, as they do in every book.
Out of all three books, Fathomless has the least action. It’s also the fastest one I’ve read. I was extremely anxious to read about the love triangle that featured two girls after one boy (which I hardly see in books) but there wasn’t a lot of adventure/action like in Sisters Red. It also lacked the entrancing prose that Sweetly had where you just wanted to eat the pages. I love this series but Fathomless was the weakest installment. But I still liked it a lot. It was a fun read and if there’s a Fairytale Retellings part four, I will definitely be devouring that one too.
3