I could not get page 70 in this book - the story was a rather predictable looking love story (star-crossed lovers), coming from different backgrounds (mermaid vs human). Maybe this would work as a Young Adult book, because of the level of language, but I found the way diversity was discussed as a theme clumsy. ( )

The Oyster Thief, written by Sonia Faruqi, is a star-crossed (or, ocean-crossed?) lover-type book, featuring the mermaid Coralline and the human Izar. Coralline’s life isn’t terribly exciting, and while her mother gets annoyed by some of the atypical choices Coralline has made, she has managed to snag the most eligible bachelor. Disaster strikes in the form of an oil spill, and her younger brother becomes deathly ill. Coralline decides to take matters into own hands, and sets off on a quest to find a cure to save her brother. During the quest, she ends up meeting and traveling with Izar, and wonders how much she can trust him.

Whelp, where to start…

This was sloppy, repetitive writing. Each sentence was constructed as if Faruqi was following a grade school “how to construct a proper sentence” lesson, not leaving room for any excitement or action. Each sentence lead into the next, so every page seemed to be akin to, “Suddenly this happened… which resulted in this… then the characters did this…” *Yawn*

Simple concepts were over explained. Faruqi would go on about how a character now understands what had happened… and then proceeded to explain everything in the next paragraph or two, even though the audience was able to pick up all these clues beforehand. It seems like Faruqi doesn’t have faith that her readers are intelligent enough to understand what her book is about.

Nothing was consistent. There were flashbacks throughout the story that kept being brought back up (mentioned in the start, middle, and end of the book), and each time it was mentioned, there was something slightly different about it which changed the whole story! I mean, come on, what really happened? >.>

The whole plot jumped around. It seemed as each new break or new chapter, the characters were somewhere completely new, or doing something completely different. There was no exposition on how they got there, or why. It was just like, oh, ok, guess we are doing this thing now...

There is no character growth or development. The characters make weird assumptions from events that happened, that don’t make much sense at all, and jump to crazy conclusions. I’m assuming (hah, hah… get it… assumptions...) that this is to drive the plot, but it was poorly done. When it WAS shown that the character was misguided, they didn’t seem surprised.

The use of metaphors. Don’t even get me started on the metaphors. Holy crap. See above about the writing tone of a grade school lesson.This is the same. Remember how, as a child, you are told that if you can use a metaphor to help describe something in a cool, different way? It can be true, metaphors do work, just not when they are completely ridiculous, happen every other sentence, don’t make sense, and don’t add anything special to the sentence! Faruqi seemed to need to use a metaphor at least once a page.



**Thanks for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
( )

As the story unfolds, Coralline is an apprentice apothecary. She returns home late from work and is about to nap when her mother rushes into her bedroom and reminds her that Ecklon is due to arrive. She's informed she must dress for supper in a new corset that matches her bronze scales.

Thereafter, we travel back in time to where Coralline recalls first meeting the handsome, merman, Ecklon. She does remember him reaching across the counter to brush back a strand of her hair. And, now 6 months later, he wishes to marry her.

Coralline does agree to marriage and shortly thereafter a tremor from a passing ship, Ocean Dominion, causes her parents home to vibrate and Coralline to nearly faint.

It is then that we learn that Izar, Vice President of Operations for Ocean Dominion, is obsessed with mining the depths of the ocean. This has caused many hardships, but even he couldn’t have conceived of his merman transformation.

While Izar focus is on transforming back to a human, Coralline is on a quest for the elixir to save her brother who is ill from the Black Poison. In the process, she plunges headfirst into a relationship with both mermen - but which will she choose?

In closing, Faruqi’s beautifully written story is a charming invite into marine biodiversity. The parallel between ecology and the environmental threats occurring is well-detailed. We see all habitats are confronted with challenges, which makes the character interaction, without doubt, engaging.

I received a copy of this book from Deputy Publisher Jessica Case at Pegasus Books and via Marketing Manager, Abeeda Poorna. ( )