For a short book, this is incredibly repetitive. It follows the standard “man finds a beautiful, silent mermaid and falls in love with her” storyline, slowly. Every minor thing that happens is told to us by general narrative, female protagonist’s thoughts, male protagonist’s diary, and then via annoying mermaid sing-song. And then sometimes there may be a conversation about it where the same characters repeat the same information to each other, without adding anything. It also has a lot of really bad sex, and is obsessed with telling me about all the male characters ‘cockstands’. I’m not really bothered, TBH. 

Generally speaking, all characters of both genders are sex-obsessed and don’t like women too much. Women are referred to as bitches countless times, to no particular end and without anyone objecting. I’m also not a big fan of the racial politics. The main female antagonist’s motivations are sexual jealousy and hatred of white people, which is uncomfortable, especially since she is never fleshed out and given a more complex inner life, but rather is presented merely as a troublemaking villain. The female protagonist is a white women, and the main source of all our information via the island’s racial situation. The mermaid is a POC, but also a kinda rhyming sex-baby rather than a character. Which isn’t great.