absinthe's Reviews (391)

Beautiful stories illustrating the the humanity of those on a psychiatric prison ward. Given that people who have been arrested are often treated as less than human, I thought thus was an important perspective to hear from. 

The pacing in the first 1/3rd of the book wasn't great for me. Pretty early on it's clear that the book is about deadly mermaids, so to have a few attack scenes but then have to wait 100+ pages to get into the present-day action felt like an odd choice. The portrayal of Olivia as someone on the spectrum also seemed off - at first it just seemed like she was a young woman with anxiety, but that portrayal changed once it was revealed that she was on the spectrum. It did make me wonder if that choice was made part way through the book, and the early portrayal of the character wasn't changed to reflect that.

Overall it was a good book and I did appreciate the story. 

A beautiful love story exploring the relationship between two teens with chronic illness. The focus of the narrator struggling with a chronic but often unseen condition really resonated with me, as someone who minimizes my own unseen pain condition. There were definitely times when I didn't connect to the story, largely because I'm pretty far from my own teenage years and don't connect well with YA in general, but I gained a lot from this read and will be recommending it pretty widely to my friends in healthcare.