If you want to be haunted and feel unending sadness wrapped in beauty and magic - this is the book.

Merfolk born from land and they have memory-harnessing and a kind of empathic telepathy that plays a key role in accessing tangible power is only a surface layer of the story. This one weaves ancestral, tribal memory during a traumatic time in history of their people and the keeper of thesw memories is slowly losing her faculties.

"One can only go for so long without asking who am I? Where do I come from? What does all this mean? What is being? What came before me, and what might come after?" - The Remembrance

I do so enjoy these mermaid tales that
Avoid the Ariel-trope altogether. No shade to Ariel - you know I love you long time🌸

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
A mermaid in crisis abandons her pod (I mean it's not a pod it's so big numbering thousands) and flees a gift that eviscerates her health and youth. I don't know what song inspired the book, I keep hearing Bird York - In The Deepbut somehow it feels like too small a sound for this massive event underwater.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Zoti Aleyu is a builder of nations all to never feel loneliness ever again. I fully understand that. Thanks to David Attenborough I learnt about an amazing whale quest to curb loneliness. There is a whale that visits the Great Barrier Reef during migration season and actively seeks out humans. He is alone but for 8 years he has been doing this.

There is loneliness in the sea but there is also a calling: home,family, legacy and beauty. I love it.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene:
Too many captivating and devastating scenes. So, just a few:
✔️The Remembering in the mudwomb😭Yetu does the thing for self-preservation...something bad this way comes
✔️Language and names: Zoti encountering a land-dweller.
✔️Lonely no more: massive whale and merpups
✔️The Birth of Aj

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Yetu was becoming an ancestor herself. Like them, she was dead, or very near it.” (hhmm, something unchangeable is about to happen)
🖤 “Could you be our god?” we ask,
“I am too small to be a god,” Waj says.” (Zoti at the feet of their land-dweller)
🖤 “We are not worried about dying, though we are not yet at the point where we are wishing for death” (Zoti on the btink of a great discovery)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Dragonfish+Sharks Attempted suicide
■ The chorus: wajinru
■ Skalu: whale saviors
■Waj, Zoti Aleyu, Anutza, Ketya, Omwela, Erzi, Udu, and Tulo.
■The Birthing Song

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Fantasy Books by 2025