Book Review: Tangled Tides by Karen Amanda Hooper

Tangled Tides by Karen Amanda Hooper
(The Sea Monster Memoirs, #1)
Release Date: November 25, 2011
Publisher: Rhemalda; 328 pages

Yara Jones doesn’t believe in sea monsters—until she becomes one.

When a hurricane hits her island home and she wakes up with fins, Yara finds herself tangled up in an underwater world of mysterious merfolk and secretive selkies. Both sides believe Yara can save them by fulfilling a broken promise and opening the sealed gateway to their realm, but they are battling over how it should be done. The selkies want to take her life. The merfolk want something far more precious.

Treygan, the stormy-eyed merman who turned Yara mer, will stop at nothing and sacrifice everything to protect his people—until he falls for Yara. The tides turn as Yara fights to save herself, hundreds of sea creatures, and the merman who has her heart. She could lose her soul in the process—or she might open the gateway to a love that’s deeper than the oceans.

First off, the author, Karen Amanda Hooper, is awesome. Not only is she from Baltimore (yay) but she’s a huge Ravens fan (double yay) and she’s super fun to talk to! By her being so awesome, definitely encouraged me to want to read this book more and more. I’m glad I finally was able to read this book, I’ve had it since just after Christmas but I hadn’t had a chance to read it with other books already lined up on my to-read list.

I can honestly say, I don’t think I’ve read any mermaid books. I’m trying to think if I have but none are coming to mind. Maybe it’s because I’ve never had a thing for mermaids. But you know what? It sounded interesting, the cover is absolutely beautiful and the author, Karen, is as nice as nice can be. I dove right in.

We start off with an orphaned teenager who is about to be celebrating her eighteenth birthday but a massive hurricane comes in and causes all sorts of madness. She meets this random guy who is outside her house in the middle of this storm and he helps her move a board to block her window. He ends up putting in her some trance like state and takes her to be transformed into a mermaid. That’s when things get really crazy…especially when we find out her boyfriend, Rownan, is a selkie and half brother to the hottie who helped change Yara, Treygan.

I’m going to be honest here. Yara got on my nerves for about the first third of the book. I mean, I can understand why she was so stubborn and obnoxious. She was turned into a mermaid without ever being asked or informed. I would furious too. But when she saw that Treygan wasn’t a threat to her, nor were other mermaids, her attitude still hadn’t changed. I was glad that she came around and by the end of the book, I came out admiring and respecting her. She turns out to be something far greater than she or anyone (including the readers) expected her to be.

There's not really a love triangle, per say, in this book. I mean, I guess there sort of is for part of the book but - it becomes aparent who has feelings for who and motives each guy had for getting close Yara. I think I disliked Rownan at one point but it was hard because he was likeable. Treygan, on the other hand, just sounds dreamy. Blue happens to be my favorite color so the fact that he was a Blue ranked merman was awesome. He is such a good guy, like suuuuuuch a good guy. He puts everyone else ahead of him and I admire that so much.

There are so many surprises in this book, most of them I didn't see coming but that's what made everything exciting. You think you know what's going to happen and boom, something else happens that changes everything. You don't know who you can really trust or who Yara should trust. It's a crazy ride, but it's very exciting. I'm glad this was my first mermaid read. I personally loved the parts of this book that were in Treygan's POV the best. I think they were written the best and I think he came off easier than the others.

I recommend this book to those who enjoy YA Fantasy. This is right up our alley and it's very enjoyable. If you like mermaids, then I definitely recommend picking a copy of this up. I see mermaids seem to be the new trend in YA so I'm kind of excited to read more, different takes on mermaids and sea creatures.