Midnight Pearls: A Retelling Of The Little Mermaid (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
The IntroductionI have been painfully waiting to get Midnight Pearls for a week and received it a couple of days ago. This review will be spread into three parts: the good, the bad, and the summarization of my review. (Note: this review contains basically all the spoilers, so if you don’t want to know the end of the book, consider yourself warned☺) This is the beginning of the story, Pearl was found over 10 years ago by a fisherman. Her appearance is very strange. Her hair is silvery, her legs are very long, and her skin is oddly pale. Years pass and her only friend is Prince James. This is a secret from everybody. Prince James is told that he must marry and decides to propose to Pearl. He takes her out on a boat ride and as he is going to ask her to marry him the boat begins to sink. Meanwhile, Faye, a mermaid and Kale, a merman are underwater. They are prince and princess of a mer-kingdom. Kale was betrothed to a mer-princess of a different mer kingdom years ago. This princess was Pearl. He is in love with Pearl and refuses to believe she is dead. Faye saves Prince James from drowning and falls in love with him. Kale makes sure that Pearl gets to land safely, but doesn’t let her see him. Both mer-people go underwater. The prince vows he will marry the person who rescued him. The mer-people end up at the sea witch, Faye trading her voice for legs, and Kale trading his sight for legs. Their bargain is this, they have seven days to get married to their loves or they and their soul will die. If they succeed they will stay human forever.The GoodThere were many things I liked about this book. I absolutely LOVED one of the sub-plots that had to do with overthrowing the king. It was brilliant and realistic. The IDEA of the sea witch was nice, but it was poorly executed. One thing I enjoy about mermaid stories is their differences from humans and how this causes them occasional trouble. (Ex. In Kathryn Lasky’s Daughters of the sea the character, Hannah gets “land sick” and sheds salt) Being pulled into an entirely different world, even if it is still on land fascinates me and keeps me coming back to books like Gail Carson Levine’s: Ever and Goose Girl by: Shannon Hale. This book partially pulled this off but the spell was repeatedly broken throughout the story, (this happened as I was rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of the characters and marveling anyone could think people would really act that way)Kale and Faye’s predicament gave me more sympathy for the characters than if it was just the traditional sacrifice my voice, a la Little Mermaid. This helped me enjoy the story more. It was good that the main character was told not to throw away her life on someone she doesn’t love, but to be honest there was more development between Pearl and the villain, Robert than her and her love interest Kale. James was a good character. I thought he was a kind, and noble person.The BadThere are a couple main complaints I have about this book. The first was the characters: their emotions seemed forced to get the story line moving quickly. The first thing that pops out at me when I think of their forced emotions was James. He was ready to propose to a girl who he had been friends with for over ten years, and he gets saved by one mermaid and BAM! He is head over heals, a victim of Insta-Love. I think this says something about his personality. Maybe Pearl was better off without him after all. Who knows, maybe if they had gotten married he would divorce her because he fell head over heels in love with some servant who saved him from spilling his drink. It also seemed he was ignorant, naïve, and somewhat of a coward when it came to standing up for those he loved or thought he loved. He was ever being saved by someone else, which irritated me to no end. First Faye saved him, and then it was his father, and so on. (A plot technique that works for me about twice, at which point I begin to wonder if the character is stupid, helpless, or a coward.) It wasn’t a problem that he was saved the first time by Faye, that was a necessity. What was a problem was, that despite his overwhelming “vigilance” over the duke and his sorrow over the fact that his father is not as suspicious as he should be, the father ends up saving both of them. He was very irritating and overly ready to lay either Pearl or Faye aside for me to consider them in love. My picture of love is displayed in Goose Girl (by: Shannon Hale) when Geric (prince) throws himself in a duel to the death to save the girl he has been gradually falling in love with over a period of months. James shows absolutely no loyalty to Faye when she finds out she is the sister of the “convict” he doesn’t even question that she is a traitor, I mean really people? Come on. That’s not love.Pearl’s love story doesn’t strike me as true either. She meets a weird guy on the beach who is completely blind, who claims they are betrothed, and says he loves her and it takes her all of an 1/8 of a page to meet him and kiss him. Faye is even worse than Pearl, she sees a hot guy from a boat once, and is willing to 1. Drown on the beach to rescue him (this one isn’t the worst). 2. Takes the extra time to kiss him on the beach all while she is drowning because she can’t breathe air. 3. Is willing to risk banishment so she can see a murderous sea witch who may or may not kill her. 4. Is willing to sacrifice her life and her soul so she can have SEVEN DAYS to get said prince who she has never talked to, to marry her, who she may or may not love when she ACTUALLY talks to him. Who really believes this?Another problem was that nothing really seems to take any effort on Pearl’s part, other than swimming with a heavy skirt at the beginning. It takes her less than five minutes to defeat the sea witch because (Gasp!) she has the pearl of destiny off the sea witches necklace, compared with the entire NECKLACE of pearls the sea witch has. I mean how does a person with ONE magic pearl defeat (within minutes) someone who has an ENTIRE necklace of them and has been unlocking their power for years, it’s like saying 2+2=3. But let’s not trouble ourselves with petty details like that, right? I’m all for strong heroes/heroines but in order for me to consider them strong the thing that they are trying to do has to be somewhat difficult.I will be the first to admit that Robert was a good villain. He was the only one whose emotions felt real to me (other than James at the VERY beginning). His evilness was so despicable that I had no problem hating him (something that is good in villains for me) OK. Phew, that was a long rant, but this is nothing, absolutely NOTHING compared to the frustration I felt when I first read this book.Next order of business, Kale. I liked him as a hero, and if he had been in a different story, I might be mooning after him by now. But he is in this story and well… I knew something was wrong when I read the line “For years his heart had been too heavy to allow him to play.” This in itself is not bad at all and may actually seem devoted, until you remember that he was FOUR when Adrianna (Pearl) disappeared. Does anybody remember in detail anybody they knew when they were four, let alone fall in love with them? Now you may say, “Then it’s not love at first sight, HAH!” , but let me remind you that Pearl has absolutely no memory of this and to be honest I don’t count Kale’s “heartbreak”. I don’t think it is even possible to fall in love with someone at the age of FOUR, and spends 13 years looking for her. A royal betrothal is possible though. Love, not so much.OK, this one may bother me a little more than it does other people, but I absolutely HATED the corny, can I use the term “fishy” sea references? This was the “fishily” romantic line that drove me nuts, “How does a whale know when to swim for warmer waters for winter? How do the fish know when a predator is near? How do you know when love is real? You just know.” Did he just compare her to a fish? At the end of the story I pretty much hated Finneas, Mary, and James. All they did was force her to marry some guy she hated. Funnily enough, I actually liked Robert more than any of the other characters because he was the only one I could understand, and I felt like he was portrayed in a way that fit his role in the story.I am not saying love at first sight cannot be pulled off. It is perhaps, not my favorite kind of romance, (I prefer the kind shown in Pride and Prejudice) but it can be done to my satisfaction, (especially when I am in a romantic mood) I love the Violet Eyes book in the Once Upon A Time Series (at least they had to fight for their love, in the Midnight Pearls there were “obstacles” but they were overcome so quickly they didn’t feel real.) Before Midnight was also a great one (VERY fast love at first sight, but the plot was so good, and there was so much other character development that it wasn’t as much of a problem as it is in this one.) Teenage Mermaid was such a funny story, and it wasn’t really trying to be as serious as this one was so the love at first sight just matched the world the author had created, besides the magic was so good I just focused on that. This one is sort of a twisted combination of all these. It has the magic, yes, but it is done so poorly and so quickly it is no more than a side note. It also has mer-people, but their world is not ever of apparent interest to the author. All you know is that there are two kingdoms, and they all, apparently love to wear pearls. (Pearl’s father, the king, has a pearls crown, and the sea witch has a giant necklace of them.) I could go on and on but to keep this thing under ten pages, I had better stop now☺The Summarization of My ReviewPerhaps my review was unfair, but I expect a lot more from my favorite genre of books. I also expected more from a book with such a great story to re-tell. This was not one I would recommend to read, unless it is to finish the series. I felt like the author was trying to cram to many sub-plots into a book that was frankly, too short. So much more could have been done with the exact same plotline, if the author had taken, perhaps a little more time or put a in little more work. The build up was actually OK, if a teensy bit rushed, but I felt like once the author was done with the buildup she said to herself, “I am going to finish writing this book in two hours.” If you have a page limit for a book you are writing, that’s fine, but make sure the type of plot you pick can be reasonably done in that number of pages. This might have been a good first book for a sequel to come next or something. Perhaps, lengthen the beginning and stop writing book when she finds out she is a mermaid. Then, in the sequel finish the story more realistically, and more slowly. I was so ready to love this book, but it just didn’t cut it. There were some good parts, but they were ruined and overshadowed by the bad.My final rating is 2 stars out of 5.Check out this and more book reviews on my blog http://theflashlightreaderblog.com/
Synopsis: "In a quiet fishing village seventeen years ago, one lone fisherman rescued a child from the sea. He and his wife raised the girl, Pearl, as their own daughter, never allowing themselves to wonder long about where she came from -- or notice her silver hair, usually pale skin, and wide, dark blue eyes.Pearl grows from a mysterious child into an unusual young woman, not always welcomed in the village. As all the other girls her age find husbands, she has only one friend to ease her loneliness. One very special, secret companion: Prince James.But their friendship is shaken when trouble erupts in the kingdom -- a conspiracy against the royal family combines with an evil enchantment from beneath the sea. Now, just when Pearl and James need each other most, bewitching magic and hints about Pearl's past threaten to tear them apart...forever."My Review: I am really loving all these retelling of classic fairy tales in the 'Once Upon A Time' books. I find it so interesting how different the point of view is from the Little Mermaid that we all know and love. I really enjoyed the characters and the really different ending from the classic tale. Pearl seems so timid and almost fearful but it was a pleasure to watch her blossom with James' friendship and the arrival of Kale and Faye. I almost wanted more in the story, I wanted to learn more about the blacksmith, and Kale and even the Sea Witch. I want to know what happens next, but at the same time I am thrilled with the ending.
What do You think about Midnight Pearls: A Retelling Of The Little Mermaid (2006)?
After reading Snow, Midnight Pearls was definitely an improvement in the Once Upon a Time series...not quite as strange, with an interesting twist on the Little Mermaid story. (Once again - I want to go back and reread the original to compare, but that's for another time.) My main gripe with this story was how unbalanced it felt: the story took a long time to get going, and then everything just seemed to happen at once. Just as I was starting to really get behind the two main characters, more new characters with crucial roles were suddenly introduced, and I just couldn't connect with them as a result. From that point forward, the plot sped up and had a number of twists that did end up working, but just were so unexpected that they didn't make a ton of sense...they would been better off with more development or just less of them.
—Sarah
During a storm, a fisherman pulls up a little girl in his net instead of fish. She's odd, with too-long legs, nearly translucent skin, and white hair. And as she grows, her oddities don't fade... but the prince doesn't seem to mind. I had high hopes for this one, thinking that perhaps the author would return to the original roots of the Little Mermaid fairy tale. But she didn't, and what she did give readers was clunky and awkward. Instead of showing, she'd tell - a couple paragraph infodump informing readers that only mermaids get premonitions, not mermen, or other equally as uninteresting and useless information. There's a lot going on in 200 pages, but none of it is explored fully. There's the evil uncle, the forced marriage, the "I'll never fit in", the "You're really a princess, you just have to remember who you are!", and of course, the sudden remembering (and subsequent piece of magic) so that she can turn everything all right just in the nick of time. It's not that I mind things being neatly wrapped up, but this was just too neat, too perfect. Unless you're doing a research project on the different variations of the Little Mermaid story, don't bother with this one.
—Jenny
I wish this system allowed half stars, because I would have given this book three and a half stars. I love fairy tale retellings and this one had the requisite plot/character twists. It was a quick, fun, very easy fast read. My main problem is with the two new "love interests" for Pearl and James. These two have been best friends for years and as friendships sometimes go, they start to discover their true feelings for each other run much deeper and on the verge of a proposal, they get interrupted by the supposed real love interests. This comes more than half way through the novel and seemingly out of nowhere. By that time, I am already completely invested in Pearl and James as the couple and not really in the least interested in Faye and Kale. I almost saw them as the antagonists keeping Pearl and James apart. I know how fairy tales end, especially rewritten ones, but I just kept hoping that somehow Faye and Kale could go back to their home unharmed and leave Pearl and James alone for their own happily ever after. I didn't really like the final couplings, who ended up with whom and where. Still, with that being said, I did enjoy this book quite a bit, much more than her other one in this series.
—Melissa
