Thank you so much to @HambrightPR & author Venessa Vida Kelley for the complimentary copy of the book!!

This book is OUT NOW!

Wow!!! This is not my usual type of book but I am so glad I read it. This book was deemed The Shape of Water meets The Greatest Showman and that is entirely correct. Now granted my memory of The Shape of Water is a little foggy but I do remember the main themes of the book and well The Greatest Showman is one of my all time favorites so naturally I was sold on the book! The part that made me nervous was the historical aspect of it and if you know me, you know I am not usually picking up merman books. I was nervous that because of the merman that it was going to be too fantasy and maybe high magical realism. I trusted a book friend's review of this and she ensured me that this book is easy to follow. She was right.

"Rio, you make me feel like I'm kissing the tides."
"Benigno, you make me feel like I am holding the moon."

I was able to follow this book from start to end with no issue. I thought this story was so original! I was enthralled in Benny's story and loved his journey throughout the book. He was this scrappy kid from Puerto Rico who was giving a name and sent to New York to start a new life. But as you can imagine, it was not an easy go for him. By chance he meets Samuel Morgan who commissioned Benny's employer Structural Ironworks to build a tank. When things go bad with them, he seeks out Mr. Morgan and from there Benny learns more about his business and meets a family of entertainers. See Mr. Morgan runs a stage show in Luna Park called Morgan's Menagerie of Human Oddities. And the merman is going to be the exhibit that saves them all from financial ruins.

I absolutely loved all the side characters in this!!! I thought there was just enough of them and you got glimpses of each of their personalities throughout the book.

I love Benny's relationship with Sonia and Matthias the most. Sonia is young and stuck in this role as the face of the Oddities. Morgan uses her to get money from rich men who help fund the side show. She doesn't want this life but she feels like she has no other options. I did feel bad when she thought she found a good guy in Benny (which don't get me wrong he is a good one) but Benny is gay. Matthias was who he confided in the most. They had meaningful conversations and I love that the Matthias was working on his memoir throughout the book. It just was a fun side thing he would do. He felt like the "dad" of the group.
Between the two of them, they really took Benny into the family and taught him about their life in the show and guided him. Benny felt like he could trust them the most.

By the end of the book all the characters were there for Benny and Rio - keeping it vague so you can see why & how!

"Cause the prettiest girl in Brooklyn wants me, but my heart wants someone else. Someone who knows me better than any human alive - including me. And I don't even know his name. All I know is that he misses the moon. If I could, I'd ride a rollercoaster to the sky just to steal it for him."

The romance between Benny and Rio - gahhh my heart!!!! Benny just loved Rio for who he was - merman and all. I love their incaldenstine meet ups and how they bonded over music. It was so cute when Benny would play the guitar for him and they would trade off lyrics. Rio taught Benny how to swim and how to control his breathing (Benny has pretty bad asthma). Their relationship was just so sweet. You could tell they just needed one another. Benny had no family until he met those on the side show but Rio was taken away from his family (his mother was killed) and they just had this sense of loneliness until they met. And I thought the end was very beautiful.

My biggest issue is just a my own personal pet peeve (not reflective of the authors writing or the story itself) but I hate long chapters. The chapters on average were about 15-20 minutes on my kindle. As much as I loved the book, it took me a while to read because of the longer chapters.

As if this story wasn't original enough, because the author is a talented artist we got to see their work sprinkled throughout the book. The drawings are incredible and added that extra touch to really help set the book apart from other novels out there. Plus it's always nice to see the images that you are trying to imagine especially the one of all the performers.

I highly recommend this book!