For two weeks, come celebrate mermaids, whether it’s winter or summer where you live. Splash into Summer runs from June 28th to July 12th. There will be author interviews, guest posts, giveaways, reviews, and more! Now is the time to celebrate mermaids, especially with so many new novels about them coming out.
Today, Small Review has written an awesome guest post on mermaids to share with all of you. Small is one of my all-time favorite bloggers. We have VERY similar tastes, so if you like me, you’ll probably like her as well. We often have the same reasons for liking or disliking a book. If there’s a book I wanted to read that Small didn’t care for and the reasons make me think I might not like it either, I’m likelier to pass. If, on the other hand, she reads a book I don’t want to read, haven’t heard of, or have further down my pile and she makes it sound like the most amazing thing since sliced bread, that book is shooting up on my to-read pile! Plus, Small has all these crazy cool features unique to her blog such as Review Comparisons (where she looks at reviews from various bloggers to put together a pros/cons survey, of sorts) and writes up tutorials for making your blog look a LOT better with her html tricks. I love this girl and you should too!5 Reasons Mermaid Books Rock
THANK YOU Bonnie for inviting me to partake in this fantastic feature!
1. Location, Location, Location!
As you've probably guessed already, I'm a human. That means I can't exactly do the whole "breathing underwater" thing very well. Bummer, I know. Honestly, I can't even swim underwater very well. So the only way I can get my fix for exploring underwater kingdoms is through mermaid books.
This opens up a whole new world of sea caverns, shell decorations, coral architecture, undersea gadgets, and fantastic hair (am I alone in thinking long hair looks fabulous underwater?). The world-building possibilities are HUGE!
2. Princesses
I'm a sucker for a princess story, and many mermaid stories feature a royal main character. Do you know what's better than an underwater house? An underwater CASTLE.
3. Inventive adaptations
One thing mermaids can't seem to do is keep to their underwater homes. They're always finding ways to mingle with humans, and that does present a problem: A beached and floppy mermaid is not a pretty picture. So authors need to get creative. I love discovering all the different ways authors will come up with as a workaround to the whole no-legs thing. Magic spells, deals with very bad witches, shape-shifting abilities, and giant fish bowls (Lish!) are among my favorites.
4. Forbidden love
Ah, forbidden love! Mermaid girls never seem to be able to find love with a nice mermaid boy (erm, merboy? Merman?) So of course they go off and fall for the ultimate unattainable guy: A guy who can't breathe underwater! Talk about relationship obstacles! This insta-conflict helps make mermaid books entertaining. Authors are left with two ways to handle such wayward love: Come up with a creative solution, or write a tragedy. If done right, both have high awesome potential.
5. Humor potentialWhen a mermaid comes out of the water for the first time, she doesn't know squat about a ton of human conventions and inventions. Watching her learn how to properly use forks and figure out how fire works can lead to some pretty hilarious scenes.