The Surface Breaks is a feminist retelling of many people’s favourite tale - The Little Mermaid.

Gaia is 15 years old and is the favourite daughter of the wicked Sea King, who thinks mermaids should be seen and not heard, and banishes ugly, fat or physically deformed merpeople to the outskirts of his city. Gaia is entranced with the human world and when she’s finally allowed a peek, she falls in love with a human man and is prepared to give up everything to be with him.

Following a lot of mixed reviews, I was nervous about reading this as I didn’t know if i’d love it or hate it. I found myself pleasantly surprised as I really ended up enjoying this.

I did think the feminist message about misogny was a bit in your face, and I think this could have been toned down. I’m loathe to believe that every single merman was a woman-hating pos, and I like to think there were some good seeds among a lot of bad eggs. There are some conversations an thoughts Gaia have that are hard to read about body image or just general thoughts about females and what they should do or not do. There was also a lot of jealousy and bad feelings among her and her sisters, and that was sad to read.

I really liked Ceto, the Sea Witch, and how she talked to Gaia about female sexuality, sensuality and was also a plus-sized sass queen. I agree with others in that it would have been great to have had more of Ceto in the novel (or honestly, just a whole novel about her because she was great).

I think this was a good effort for a modern, feminist retelling of The Little Mermaid but it’s definitely not the best example of Louise O’Neill’s writing.