Book Review - Deep Blue

[Maeve Madden]

Title of the book: Deep Blue

Author: Jennifer Donnelly

Series: The Waterfire Saga (Deep Blue is the first book in the series)

Genres: Young Adult Fantasy

Short summary of the story: Serafina is a mermaid princess of an ancient civilization in the Mediterranean Sea. On the day of an important ceremony, which includes her betrothal to a handsome prince, Serafina’s world is turned upside down when an assassin shoots a poisoned arrow into her mother’s heart. This event lines up with strange dreams that have been haunting her and telling her of an ancient evil awakening. Serafina must travel the oceans and seas in search of five other mermaids who can help her on her quest to find her mother’s assassin and save her world from impending doom.

Good points / bad points: The world-building in this novel is very detailed and intricate. The author paints a very vivid picture of the society of merpeople and has obviously put a lot of thought into its history. With this, however, comes a lot of info-dumping. This makes it a bit difficult to get into, especially in the first few chapters. I love the idea behind a group of young women banding together to save the world. My problem with the novel’s execution of this trope is that the characters are very two-dimensional and lack any sort of character development. In particular, the main character, Serafina, seems too good to be true right from the start; it’s hard to find any flaws. This doesn’t change as the story unfolds, which makes Serafina an unrelatable protagonist and makes any character development borderline impossible. This book was not the easiest to get through for me mainly because I disliked the protagonist so much. The info-dumping of the society didn’t help either. Unless you really love mermaids and are content with not relating to the main character, I don’t recommend this book.