Ripple - Mandy Hubbard
Synopsis: Lexi is cursed with a dark secret. Each day she goes to school like a normal teenager, and each night she must swim, or the pain will be unbearable. She is a siren - a deadly mermaid destined to lure men to their watery deaths. After a terrible tragedy, Lexi shut herself off from the world, vowing to protect the ones she loves. But she soon finds herself caught between a new boy at school who may have the power to melt her icy exterior, and a handsome water spirit who says he can break Lexi's curse if she gives up everything else. Lexi is faced with the hardest decision she's ever had to make: the life she's always longed for - or the love she can't live without?
This was my first siren novel. So I don't know if it was my lack of knowledge and background about sirens or the other ways that sirens have been handled in Young Adult fiction, but I was a little disappointed. The bare bones of the novel were good...but that's kind of all this novel was. I wanted more.
The novel is basically an after story. What happens after tragedy. The whole novel jumps off of the event in which Lexi drowns her first love, Stephen (not a spoiler I swear you find this out right away). From that moment Lexi has to learn how to control her murderous impulses and she copes by shutting herself off from the world. But then there's Cole, who was her first love's best friend, and the new boy, Erik, who tries to get through to her, and her ex-best friend/Stephen's sister who's struggling to find out what happened the night her brother mysteriously drowned. Between these three characters, Lexi finds herself coming out of hiding.
Cole was kind of vanilla. He just didn't get me excited or swoony. He was sweet, but there wasn't much to him. Erik was interesting, but he just felt too forced. And I definitely felt like Lexi could have had so much more to her. All of the characters just felt a little undeveloped. As did the story. The complications were simple, the plot was slightly predictable (though not completely, at one point I was thrown for a loop), and Lexi's family history starts to be told but that explanation kind of falls away.
I actually kind of wish the story could have gone back to before Stephen died. That story sounds more interesting.
Again, it's quite possible that I'm just missing things because my background is limited, but I definitely expected more from this novel. It was a really quick read and I definitely don't think it was a waste of time. I do think this book had some kind of potential, it just fell a little short.
Ripple - Mandy Hubbard
Synopsis: Lexi is cursed with a dark secret. Each day she goes to school like a normal teenager, and each night she must swim, or the pain will be unbearable. She is a siren - a deadly mermaid destined to lure men to their watery deaths. After a terrible tragedy, Lexi shut herself off from the world, vowing to protect the ones she loves. But she soon finds herself caught between a new boy at school who may have the power to melt her icy exterior, and a handsome water spirit who says he can break Lexi's curse if she gives up everything else. Lexi is faced with the hardest decision she's ever had to make: the life she's always longed for - or the love she can't live without?
This was my first siren novel. So I don't know if it was my lack of knowledge and background about sirens or the other ways that sirens have been handled in Young Adult fiction, but I was a little disappointed. The bare bones of the novel were good...but that's kind of all this novel was. I wanted more.
The novel is basically an after story. What happens after tragedy. The whole novel jumps off of the event in which Lexi drowns her first love, Stephen (not a spoiler I swear you find this out right away). From that moment Lexi has to learn how to control her murderous impulses and she copes by shutting herself off from the world. But then there's Cole, who was her first love's best friend, and the new boy, Erik, who tries to get through to her, and her ex-best friend/Stephen's sister who's struggling to find out what happened the night her brother mysteriously drowned. Between these three characters, Lexi finds herself coming out of hiding.
Cole was kind of vanilla. He just didn't get me excited or swoony. He was sweet, but there wasn't much to him. Erik was interesting, but he just felt too forced. And I definitely felt like Lexi could have had so much more to her. All of the characters just felt a little undeveloped. As did the story. The complications were simple, the plot was slightly predictable (though not completely, at one point I was thrown for a loop), and Lexi's family history starts to be told but that explanation kind of falls away.
I actually kind of wish the story could have gone back to before Stephen died. That story sounds more interesting.
Again, it's quite possible that I'm just missing things because my background is limited, but I definitely expected more from this novel. It was a really quick read and I definitely don't think it was a waste of time. I do think this book had some kind of potential, it just fell a little short.
