My Fair Mermaid by Sarah Beran

 

The Little Mermaid meets Pygmalion… 

Maribel has learned to stay quiet. 

As an orphan relying on the generosity of family, and with six outspoken and energetic cousins, silencing her own voice is often the easiest way to keep the peace and ensure her own acceptance. After helping her cousin rescue Prince Frederick from a shipwreck, Maribel finds herself as the unwitting accomplice in her cousin’s plot to marry the human prince. The plan is simple: Maribel will distract Frederick’s grumpy best friend, Professor Hadrian Higsley, so that the scheming mermaid can cozy up to the prince.

Between a friendly wager over slippers, her growing attraction to a certain translator, the appearance of a foreign fiancée, and an increasingly desperate cousin, Maribel finds it harder and harder to remain a silent observer. Will she finally find the courage to speak? Or will the little mermaid choose once again to give up her voice?

Review: A blend of My Fair Lady and Little Mermaid. Full disclosure: not a book I wanted to like. Do you ever start a story and are like, "Meh... Not my thing?" Little Mermaid was never my favourite and neither was My Fair Lady, but somehow, I really liked this story. It drew me in and forced me to be invested in the characters and to care about what happened to them. I loved Maribel's character arc. Her growth is so well done, and despite my reluctance, I was completely cheering her on for her happy ending. 

 

Some of my favourite parts of this book were the fantastic linguistic details. The author spent a lot of time and effort on the scenes where Maribel is learning to speak so the humans can understand her. Sounds boring, right? It should have been. It wasn't. At all. These were some of my favourite pieces of the whole book.

Overall, loved this little story, and I wanted to high-five Maribel at the end.