I recently finished reading Deeper by Jane Thomson.  This is the story of a mermaid (they’re called mers) that wants to be human, so it’s a retelling of ‘The Little Mermaid’.  That’s where the similarities end.

There is an odd brutality to the book, which isn’t shocking or grotesque.  It comes off surprisingly casual and part of the world.  Mer society does come off as survival of the fittest and primal at times with the characters biting and attacking each other.  I didn’t feel like I was reading about a human world under the water.  Through detail and character actions, I felt like the Mer had a rich, deep world that was entirely different from the world I’m used to.  One can tell that Jane Thomson put a lot of time and effort into crafting their world.

A difficult part about this book is that I loved the Mer world so much that I lost momentum during the human part.  I missed Melur’s sisters (sort of) and Che and even her disturbing Grandmother.  That was a world that I wanted to keep exploring with her.  You spend the majority of the book in that world and learning about the characters, so you feel torn when you leave them behind.  As I’m writing this, I’m wondering if that was the intention of the author.  She makes the reader love that world so much that we feel as lost and out of place as Melur.  Whether she intended to do it or not, that is how I felt and that is a big plus for the book.

The only disappointing part of the book was that most of the characters had similar temperaments.  Melur, Che, and Grandmother were the ones that stood out because they reacted differently than the others.  At first, I thought only one sister had a tendency to physically lash out and then I realized all of them did it.  I couldn’t tell if that was the way their society was or it was supposed to make the reader dislike them.  The humans had some major jerk moments too and I could never figure out why they disliked Melur.  Their motivation was never made clear and even the human lead was difficult to understand because I was never allowed in his head.  So, the characterization did get a little muddy at times when emotions ran high.  When characters were calm and kind, I got a better sense of individuality.

I highly recommend this book and hope Jane Thomson continues to publish such gripping tales.  Maybe another that takes place in Mer society?  Please?