Fathomless: Review

Title: Fathomless
Author: Jackson Pearce
Release Date: September 2012
Published By: Little, Brown
Pages: 291
Goodreads Rating: 3.64 stars

Review: Celia Reynolds is the youngest in a set of triplets, and while her sisters are powerful, all she can see is the past, which seems so insignificant -- until she meets Lo. Lo doesn't know who she is, or was. She clings to shreds of her humanity, even as she's tempted to embrace her dark immortality. The two form a friendship, but soon they find themselves competing for the affection of a boy, Jude. Lo wants more than that, though. According to the others, there's only one way for Lo to earn back her humanity: persuade a mortal to love her - and steal his soul.

I genuinely enjoyed this novel, as I have with this author's previous books (she's basically an auto-read for me, now), but for much of the story, I found myself alternating between "this is so cool!" and "this is so cliche!". The "cool" aspects definitely included the premise because I just loved the concept of the so-called ocean girls. It was mysterious and suspenseful, not to mention delightfully creepy, to read about their slow transformation from human to monster.

And when I say suspense, I do mean suspense. It was actually difficult to put this book down, which is how you know you're reading a good book. A book you like will capture you while you're reading it, but a truly good book will capture you even when you're not - and that's what FATHOMLESS did. Even at the parts where I didn't like certain characteristics of the book, I still had that overarching urge to know what's going to happen next, what the secret behind the mystery is, if everything will end up okay.

As for the cliche aspects, though, I did think that the ultimate mystery reveal was somewhat... disappointing. The story was building up so much, and maybe my expectations were just getting raised too high, but it just wasn't as super-amazing-awesome-cool as I thought it would be. I also felt that the romance was very traditional, very young-adult. Not that there's anything horribly wrong with that, but I'm always on the look-out for romances that are different, and this was not one of them.

Still, I very much enjoyed FATHOMLESS and continue to hold the same appreciation for Jackson Pearce's wonderful fairy tale retellings. I absolutely loved the suspenseful nature of the story and the charged concept behind it, and though I did wish for a better plot twist and more in the way of a unique romance, I highly recommend this to any fans of fairy tale retellings or of the author's previous books.