Hello Bookaholics!
I hope you all enjoyed my passionate Lord of Shadows book review I posted two days ago. It is, in my opinion one of my best book reviews on this blog and if you haven’t already read it I recommend you do (you have no excuse because it’s non-spoiler!).
But today we discus the not often mentioned creatures of the deep; Mermaids, and how there are very few of them as the focus in Fantasy novels of today.
This post was inspired by (but in no way sponsored by) Ingo by Helen Dunmore. The book was published in 2006 by Harper Collins Children’s Books and is the first in a series of four books that revolve around a girl who finds out her family has a deep connection with the ocean.
One of my all time favourite Booktubers, Benjamin from BenjaminOfTomes, made a video about mermaid books which got me thinking about the only mermaid book I read years ago called Ingo. I had to read this for school in year 8 and it was largely disliked by everyone in my year level who were forced to read it. It got me thinking; do we hate a book if we have a negative mindset when we start reading it brought upon by being forced into it? Would everyone have liked it if they had chosen to read it? These are questions I ask myself every time someone tells me they hate a school book they were made to read.
It’s a curious matter that I want to bring up in another post later on in year, as to not distract from the matter at hand. A lack of mermaid novels!
I did a quick a quick Goodreads search for ‘Mermaids’ and learnt a few things:
- Mermaids are a subcategory under Mythology, not Fantasy as I miss-classified them.
- There are about 3740 results that include the word Mermaid in either the title, author, genre, or a mix of two or more.
- The Goodreads search is not as refined as I’d like it to be.
A quick Google search lead me to this Goodreads list:
Which seems to be very helpful for people like me looking to read a mermaid book but not wanting to stumble across a bad nut, since there are so few of them.
I went through the top 10 books on this list (canceling out The Little Mermaid because we all know that story), and read over the blurbs and reviews to ensure they fit my Mermaid book criteria; and found the top 5 books that I will recommend to you and hopefully one day get around to reading myself.
Mermaid Book Criteria:
- Mermaid must be a main character
- Book must be about Mermaids and not just have glimpses of mermaids in them
- Must focus on Mermaid and not human problems
- Can’t be The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson
- The book must be liked by readers or there is no point in adding it in this post
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Following my crazy criteria and only using the Top 10 books of the above Goodreads list I have compiled a list of 5 books that I hope to read and I think you guys might like too.
- Of Poseidon by Anna Banks (The Syrena Legacy #1)
- Rising by Holly Kelly (Rising #1)
- Ingo by Helen Dunmore (Ingo #1)
- Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli
- Tempest Rising by Tracy Deebs (Tempest #1)
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If anyone has any other good Mermaid books they know of, please don’t be afraid to leave a comment down below so I can find it and read it, as I am always looking for new books to read!
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Stay Happy, Healthy, and have a Lovely Week!!
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Thank You so much for reading and I hope to see you all back here Saturday with a Book Tag 🙂
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© Jasper+Spice 2017. All Rights Reserved. Please do not use without permission. This post was not sponsored, some photos are my own and were featured on my Instagram @thebookishbree. Please follow me on Goodreads (jasperandspice).
