Florence

by Ciye Cho

[Angie]

Florence is completely and utterly ordinary. She not only stays under the social radar, but off of it entirely. Then on a school trip to the beach she's kidnapped by a merman who finds her captivating. She's then thrust into the world of the merfolk, where she must find her place, as each citizen has a role to maintain the community. However, she gets mixed up in a battle between the Niemelans and the encroaching Darkness.

The first half of the book is extremely slow, but there's a lot of great world building happening. The author has created a wonderfully colorful world under the ocean. I really enjoyed how each of the merfolk are each a different color and not human looking at all. It was a nice change to have a human brought into the secretive mer world, rather than human-looking merfolk coming to the surface. The descriptions also make it easy to picture Niemela. It's full of sea creatures, beautiful merfolk, and architecture built from kelp, coral, and jellyfish.

Mermaid books have been pretty disappointing to me so far, but I think Florence has been my favorite so far. Not only because the mermaids are not human-like at all, but because the story was just different. I really enjoyed being in the mermaid world rather than in the human world, and I think that made all the difference. The ending is quite open, so I certainly hope there's a sequel!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.