Of Poseidon - Anna Banks [Review]

This review contains spoilers.

Of Poseidon by Anna Banks 

Title: Of Poseidon

Author: Anna Banks

Publisher: Feiwel and Friends

Series: Of Poseidon #1

Release Date: May 22nd 2012

Pages: 324

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Blurb:

Galen is the prince of the Syrena, sent to land to find a girl he's heard can communicate with fish. Emma is on vacation at the beach. When she runs into Galen—literally, ouch!—both teens sense a connection. But it will take several encounters, including a deadly one with a shark, for Galen to be convinced of Emma's gifts. Now, if he can only convince Emma that she holds the key to his kingdom...
Told from both Emma and Galen's points of view, here is a fish-out-of-water story that sparkles with intrigue, humor, and waves of romance.

Review:

This is the kind of book with which nothing is really bad and you do not hate it, but it just does nothing with you. I did not feel any connection to the characters or the story. This is the kind of book that you will forget after a few other books. I'm not saying I did not like it, it just was not captivating.

I usually like different POV's in books, but in this one it was very confusing. Galen was in third person and Emma in the first. The book constantly alternated POV's and I found it hard to follow who was talking at the moment. A missed chance.

I also had a problem with some of the characters.

I did not like Galen. He is your typical YA book guy: super hot, but quite arrogant and irritating. He is very controlling and pushes Emma around all the time, arranging everything for her. He is only spending time with her so he can eventually marry her to his brother, and yes, this is still the case when he falls in love with Emma. He just does not seem to respect women (or humans) at all.

Emma was an incredibly flat character. She is not strong, funny, caring or anything. The only thing 'special' about her was her few Syrena traits. She lets herself get pushed around by Galen, but I do understand she just wants answers for him. But I remember in the beginning of the book she says she is just playing a game with Galen to get what she wants. This was completely disregarded the rest of the book, when Emma seems to spend her time thinking about how she just wants to kiss him. I just could not connect or identify with her, this makes her an unlikeable heroine. And seriously, who says things like: 'ohmysweetgoodness' and 'fan-flipping-tastic'?

Their romance just does not seem realistic and is slightly confusing. First of all we are told many times they have a sort of spark, the ultimate soulmate spark or something like that, but I never actually saw that back. I'm never a fan of 'insta-love', because it just does not seem realistic. Galen was constantly telling Emma what to do and she did the exact opposite. One time they are all cozy and the other Galen is wishing for a nicer soulmate. And if Galen liked Emma so much, why did he still plan on marrying her to his brother? They just did not seem like a cute couple and I could not root for them.

I did like the characters of Rayna and Toraf. Toraf was really funny and actually a nice guy. Rayna was a bit annoying in the beginning, but later I began to understand why she acted that way. Who would not be angry all the time when they had to marry someone against their will?

The whole 'marriage against the woman's will thing' I thought was not from our time. I do not know whether it was in the book just to shock us, but I absolutely did not like it. I think YA books should promote women's freedom, not discourage it by standardising marrying against the woman's will.

The mythology part was pretty good. All the stuff about House of Poseidon and Triton and their gifts and the specifics of the Syrena biology was well-developed and clearly thought out.  I thought mermaids were an original concept and I do want to know more about it. 

I really liked the humour in this book. In the beginning I thought I was going to love Chloe's humour, but well, you know what happens with her.. (I do think her character could have been great, also a missed chance.) But throughout the book all characters have witty and funny lines, especially Toraf.

The story was average. I did like finding out more stuff about Syrena and Emma's heritage, it just seemed too slow to be really interesting. If the writer would have incorporated more of the Syrena world and less of the romance it would have been a lot better.

The cliffhanger was amazing! Even though I may not have liked the book so much, it still makes me want to read the next book.

Even though there were some nice parts in this book (the mythology and the humour) and it was not really bad or anything, I still would not recommend it. The main characters and their romance in the book are mostly irritating and the story in general is not great either.

Stars: 2.5/3 out of 5