AHHHHH mermaids and girls in love and friendship and I love these fucking books so much!!! ( )

The second in the trilogy about mermaids and humans feuding, this time with two point of views. Both Lysi & Meela have parts of their story told. If I recall correctly, the book alternates chapters.

With both point of views, the undersea world - and their conflicts; and the above sea world, and their conflicts, are explored.

heh, I've had about 20 to 30 ideas pop in and out of my brain as to what I could write here.

Well, let's see. Book goes more in depth as to the nature of both the human and merpeople. The two main characters continue to spend most of the story apart from each other. Good characterization. Good story. Still no clue where this island is supposed to be located.

Rating: 4.35

March 15 2021 ( )

I enjoyed this book overall but I'll have to admit that I preferred the first in terms of pacing and story. I found the alternating perspectives a little disorienting at times since Lysi's is more action-paced than Meela's. I liked the ending too and it made much sense why it happened. ( )

Oh my. I couldn't wish for anything better. Please tell me there'll be more?

Oh my. Oh my. I can’t. I can’t handle this book. I think I may explode, seriously. I need more. Anyway, I’ll try to contain the fangirling.

I started this book right after I finished the first, Ice Massacre. Unfortunately, I fell into a reading slump and it took me a month to read it, though I read the bulk of it over this last week, I left it sitting at 22% completed. I don’t know if I wish I had finished it sooner, or if I had yet to finish. I desperately didn’t want to leave this world. Though it’s cold and wet, I’m missing it already.

I had a feeling before I started this that Warner would be doing chapter character switches. With the whole first book from Meela’s point of view and knowing little of the merfolk’s world, how would the second work? Well, character shifts. At first I was just a teeny bit disappointed, but reason and logic took over and I knew there was no way this book would work without knowing Lysi’s side.

Throughout this book, Warner subconsciously challenges the attitudes toward women and LGBTQA people. Things like: “So you’re willing to send a girl out to fight for our people... but you’re not willing to listen to what she has to say?” “You’re training us to fight this war because it’s the only way to battle the sea demons, but you won’t take us seriously,” and,” In a perfect world, I would tell her I’d fallen in love years ago. I’d tell her love looked like sapphire blue eyes and coppery blonde hair and smooth, ivory skin. But I couldn’t. Not in this world.” Quotes like this stood out to me all over, but they weren’t in-your-face, as they sometimes can be.

I love that the merfolk count days as “tydecycles,” and that we get the origin of the term “sea demons,” and the history of Eriana Kwai. (Also, I’m glad there’s a map in the back because I kept trying to Google where Eriana would be, but it wasn’t working.

---I had a whole bunch of stuff about Meela, Lysi, Tannu, and Dani here, but my browser closed and I don’t remember what I said...---

I want to point out that I love the battle and action scenes. They’re very clean and concise, but really effective. I loved seeing a mermaid transformation. Seeing that it’s slow and somewhat painful and not magical and instantaneous. I also really loved Warner’s writing when it comes to expressing emotions. It comes across so raw and real. I truly cannot wait to read more from her.

So, I decided this time to highlight every love-thought in pink so I could find them better. Needless to say, there’s a lot and I’m totally okay with it. If I wanted my ebook to be really confusing, the last 10% would be entirely pink.

I have only a few questions about some things, like: how do the mermaids smell underwater if they have to breach to breathe? do the merfolk wear clothes? (I know this isn’t imperative to the story in the least, I’m just curious) and how the hell does Spio know what a fart would taste like, hence, the smelling underwater question.

In conclusion, I loved it. I’ve never read a mermaid book like this and I hope I never do again. I want to hold out hope that there will be a third book, but the end was so vague... I think there could be more, but idk. I did tweet Tiana Warner, so fingers-crossed!! ( )

A solid sequel with a thrilling cliffhanger.

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. This review contains spoilers for ICE MASSACRE, the first book in the series.)

“So you’re willing to send a girl out to fight for our people,” I said, “but you’re not willing to listen to what she has to say?”

“Start a family,” I muttered. “They’ve got a shock coming if that’s what they’re expecting.”

I fell head over heels (tail?) in love with the world and characters and subversive romance Tiana Warner created in Ice Massacre, and have been eagerly awaiting the sequel ever since. (1 year, 9 months, and 8 days, to be precise.) I had nearly given up when Ice Crypt hit my radar.

The story picks up a mere two weeks after the events in Ice Massacre. The crew of the Bloodhound has returned home to Eriana Kwai, battered and bloody and minus many girls - but triumphant, all things considered. (The men don't typically come back at all.) With Lysi now King Adaro's captive, Meela is hell-bent on finding the mysterious Host of Eriana. But, instead of turning it over to the power-hungry dictator, Meela plans to double-cross Adaro and maybe harness its power to destroy him? The plan's pretty sketchy, seeing as she doesn't know what the Host is or how to find it or whether it even exists.

And the Massacre Committee's no help: in Meela's month-long absence, her beloved mentor Anyo was ousted - in favor of Dani's father Mujihi, no less. An abusive bully, it's plain to see where Dani gets her mean streak. Rather than being jailed for her war crimes, Dani is made an instructor at the training camp. Now she yields power over a hundred girls instead of just twenty, and Dani (and her father) are loathe to give it up by ending the Massacres. Add the island's speciesism towards the mermaids ("sea rats," demons, vermin) and their skepticism of once-sacred creation myths to the mix, and the only ones interested in brokering a peace deal with the mermaids are Meela and her friends Tanuu, Annith, and Blacktail. But what match are four teenagers against the world - on land and in the sea?

Making matters infinitely worse, the timeline for the annual Massacre has been upended. Rather than wait until next May, Mujihi plans to send out the next ship in a matter of weeks. A battered ship and a crew of under-prepared girls: what could possibly go wrong?

There are some things I loved about Ice Crypt, and some things that left me feeling underwhelmed. Amazon and Goodreads give wildly different page counts (334 vs. 426) but, however long it is, the story drags a bit in the first half. The story is told from Meela and Lysi's alternating perspectives, which I love. (Meela's odd chapters are decorated with a tree, while Lysi gets the even numbers and a clam. So cute! It's the little flourishes.) But they spend most of the story apart, working within their respective worlds to bring an end to the hunt, which is a bummer. (Their limited scenes together, not the peace-making!) It's not until around the 80% mark that they get some screen time together, but it is worth the wait. Some VERY GOOD and VERY BAD things happen, and you will have ALL SORTS OF FEELINGS.

While I loved experiencing the underwater world through Lysi's eyes and ears and skin - her ability to navigate and perceive the world via echolocation and electrolocation is just fascinating, and in the vein of Emma Geen's The Many Selves of Katherine North and Charles Foster's Being a Beast - the mermen are mostly underwhelming. After being taken prisoner, Lysi's many escape attempts are thwarted and eventually punished by being sent to war - not at the surface, like she's been trained, but underwater, with the mermen. She finds an ally in her old school chum, Spio, and is drafted into the resistance. While her inner circle is mostly chill, the other mermen are just ew. I think they were there for a bit of comic relief, but mostly they just fall flat. Leave it to a Nice Guy (tm) to muck things up though.

Probably my biggest issue is one that's mostly beyond the author's control: the initial thrill of discovery I felt in the first book has cooled somewhat. Even so, it's an enjoyable read; some parts had me glued to my Kindle and, even if my attention wandered a bit in the middle, I'm still glad I read it.

Like Ice Massacre, Ice Crypt ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, all but promising a third book in the series. (I hope it's a trilogy; any longer, and it might feel unnecessarily drawn out.) Given the multiple surprise twists that Warner throws in at the last minute, I can't wait to see where the story takes us next!

http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/08/22/ice-crypt-by-tiana-warner/ ( )