Coral: A Book Review

Coral is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" with multiple perspectives of mental health. And while I applaud the mental health representation, this book left me feeling confused and frustrated. Here are my reasons why:

1. The writing style wasn't easy for me to read. There were too many sentence fragments and one-word sentences for it to be comfortable.

2. I felt it was too jarring to go from a mythical mermaid perspective to a modern day one.

3. The multiple points of view felt disjointed. I felt that some perspectives got more depth at different parts of the book, and while that may have been on purpose, I like reading perspectives that are equal in quantity and quality so I can understand all of their experiences. For example, Coral's perspective dies out near the midpoint, then picks up again later. Instead, Coral's voice should have been at its strongest. That midpoint and onward left me confused at her character and the plot.

4. The timeline of events gets very jumbled near the end in order to serve the author's "big reveals." I felt frustrated because it felt like the author was willingly withholding information from the reader in order to make the plot seem bigger than it actually was. Big pet peeve. Even now having finished it, I'm still confused with the timeline, and I don't think I could accurately summarize what happened.

5. The mental health message is bigger than the story and characters. Don't get me wrong—I like messages in stories, and I think Coral offers a great one about having hope when going through depression and anxiety. But I don't think the message was weaved into the story and characters enough. The characters and plot seemed to serve the message too much, making the characters seem unreal and the plot fabricated.  In an effort to preach mental-health awareness, it just didn't flow like a believable story.

I do think this story could be a powerful read for those struggling with mental health. Perhaps I didn't fully understand this book because I've never had the experiences that the characters had. But I do feel like the story was lost and the characters too underdeveloped.

Writing Aesthetic/Style: 2.5
Plot/Movement: 2
Character Development: 2
Overall: 2

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ARC! This book will be released on November 12, 2020.

For more ratings and reviews and to see what I'm currently reading, visit my Goodreads page here!