Saturday 5 July 2014

Book Review: Of Poseidon by Anna Banks


Format: Paperback
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Galen is the prince of the Syrena, sent to land to find a girl he's heard can communicate with fish. Emma is on vacation at the beach. When she runs into Galen—literally, ouch!—both teens sense a connection. But it will take several encounters, including a deadly one with a shark, for Galen to be convinced of Emma's gifts. Now, if he can only convince Emma that she holds the key to his kingdom...

Told from both Emma and Galen's points of view, here is a fish-out-of-water story that sparkles with intrigue, humor, and waves of romance.

The cover is what made me want to read this book, I mean look at it. It's so pretty! I love how hair looks underwater... Is that weird? Anyway, I came for the cover but I stayed for the writing and the story.

When I read the synopsis I knew this would be a tail never told (bahaha get it? Tail? 'Cause fish? *coughes awkwardly*) Yeah... bad puns aside I really liked the change of story. I, for one, have never read a book about a girl who can talk to fish and survive a shark attack WHICH BY THE WAY happened so super soon in the book. Like 30 pages in and there was already enough drama to fill an entire novel which I loved! This book was so different, even the characters were unique and just everything about Anna Banks's writing sucked me in and kept me from putting down the book for too long. Her story-telling was fast paced with just enough mystery and action to keep me hooked... *snorts with laughter* The story flew by for me and I think part of the reason was that there was always the whole mystery about who Emma was and I just needed to know, stat! As for the romance aspect of the story, I liked that the tension was dragged out until closer to the end. A lot of romance in books happens pretty early on but I love it when I have to wait for the inevitable kiss. It makes the whole thing seem more... special? I can't think of a better word right now.

The characters ohmygoodness the characters. I loved pretty much every single one of them. Emma kicked ass when she needed to and didn't rely on Galen to fight for her which was refreshing but the one thing I loved the most about Emma was that she was actually concerned about becoming 'that girl' the one who drops everything to be with a guy, the girl a lot of the main characters tend to become in romance novels. She does succumb to Galen and his many charms but who wouldn't? Let's put the whole fish-man-who-can-sprout-a-tail thing aside and focus on the fact that Galen was the perfect guy. He was charming, loyal to those who deserved it and compassionate and I really liked how he came to life throughout the book. He was also totally unaware of the human world, our mannerisms and saying etcetc and it was bloody adorable! The other on-land Syrenas were the same, Rayna and Toraf. My favourite scene was when Toraf met Galen in England and he thought Galen had called it 'Egg-land' and I had tears of laughter because no one told him he was wrong. God that was cute. Toraf was my favourite character in this book because of the things I mentioned above and I loved reading his speech, he was so unaware of everything and confused when Rayna said she didn't want to be mated to him even though he knew she did. He didn't even know what 'playing hard-to-get' meant, ugh, he was just a lovely character.
Another thing I enjoyed about these characters was the continuous banter throughout the entire novel. No one likes a completely serious book, it was nice to take a break from the mystery to watch Emma, Galen, Toraf and Rayna's relationships form and change. Especially Rayna and Toraf, they were always funny to read about even when they were being totally serious!

Anna Banks managed to create an entire new world complete with its own tradition, concepts and even their own laws. It always amazes me when an author does this, how can they pull something like that from their heads? I loved the Syrena world, I kinda wanna live there. Minus the whole having to bind my legs together and grow a fish tail...

In a lot of books there is one storyline that the author follows from beginning to end, the next thing I liked about this book was that there was a story within the story. There was Emma and the mystery of who she was and what she was but then underwater there was also something else going on at the same time; a war on the cusp of breaking out. It gave more depth to the book and I enjoyed jumping back and forth between the two entwined storylines.

The ending wasn't enough to send me into a week-long book coma whilst I waited for the second one to arrive but it did make me want to actually buy the second book!
I thought I'd be left with a bunch of my questions unanswered, as I've experienced before, but everything (mostly) was wrapped up and tied with a glittery red bow. And thank god! I don't think my health can take another cliffhanger so soon.

Now for the only con this book held; the fact that, sometimes, Emma could be so damn blind. Maybe a better word would be naive... nonetheless it was slightly infuriating. Then again, she made up for it with her witty banter and sarcasm so all was fine.

In conclusion, you should definitely give this book I try. I recommend it to all ages, the content it pretty much clean! Tell me if you've read it in the comments below, I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks:)

1 comment:



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