Review: Plus One by Elizabeth Fama

From Goodreads: Seventeen-year-old Soleil Le Coeur is a Smudge - a night dweller prohibited by law from going out during the day. When she fakes an injury in order to get access to and kidnap her newborn niece - a day dweller, or Ray - she sets in motion a fast-paced adventure that will bring her into conflict with the powerful lawmakers who order her world, and draw her together with the boy she was destined to fall in love with, but who is also a Ray.

My Rating: 2.5 hearts 

Thoughts on the Novel: Having loved Elizabeth Fama’s Monstrous Beauty, I had pretty high expectations for her newest novel, Plus One. Unfortunately, Plus One didn’t exactly deliver.

A huge part of that was because its plot was so far-fetched. See, you’re basically thrown into this alternate version of the U.S. where a strict curfew maintains a division between Rays (people who go to school, work, etc. during the day) and Smudges (people who do the same during the night), with no explanation given until 30% in – a bit too far into the story in my opinion – for how and why this division came about. On top of that, you’ve got a protagonist who has decided that she’s going to steal a baby without considering all its implications (e.g. like the fact that she has no diapers, will have to feed the baby every two hours, etc.). Let’s just say that things only got crazier from there, with the plot really revolving around the baby stealing incident.

The character of Sol was another issue I had with Plus One because she was far too thoughtless for my liking. Case in point: her decision to steal a baby, which she does so by hiding the baby under her hoodie and then putting the baby in a drawer! What I did like though about Sol was her loyalty to the people she loves. Unlike Sol, D’Arcy was much more level-headed, which is why I liked him better.  

I also didn’t like the romance as much as I was expecting. It’s funny that while Sol and D’Arcy weren’t together, I kept waiting for them to discover how they were connected and to just kiss; but then as soon as it happened, I wanted the opposite because they quickly moved from kissing to having sex and declaring their love for each other.

A rather disappointing novel, Plus One was released in April 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

Comments About the Cover: I think the cover and synopsis give a false impression that this is a romance-centric novel. It’s not; instead, Plus One attempts to show what people are willing to do for love (of any type). 

In exchange for an honest review, this book was received from the publisher (Macmillan Children's Publishing Group) for free via NetGalley.

Review: Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

From Goodreads: Fierce, seductive mermaid Syrenka falls in love with Ezra, a young naturalist. When she abandons her life underwater for a chance at happiness on land, she is unaware that this decision comes with horrific and deadly consequences. Almost one hundred forty years later, seventeen-year-old Hester meets a mysterious stranger named Ezra and feels overwhelmingly, inexplicably drawn to him. For generations, love has resulted in death for the women in her family. Is it an undiagnosed genetic defect ... or a curse? With Ezra’s help, Hester investigates her family’s strange, sad history. The answers she seeks are waiting in the graveyard, the crypt, and at the bottom of the ocean - but powerful forces will do anything to keep her from uncovering her connection to Syrenka and to the tragedy of so long ago. 

My Rating: 4 hearts 

Thoughts on the Novel: It took a few stories involving mermaids but with Elizabeth Fama’s Monstrous Beauty, I finally found one that delivered on its promise of seductive yet vicious mermaids. Combine the dark plot with ghosts, a curse lasting generations and descriptive imagery, and it’s no wonder that Fama’s book is my favourite mermaid novel to date! Told from the seamlessly alternating perspectives of the mermaid Syrenka and the human Hester born almost a century and a half later, Monstrous Beauty slowly reveals how the lives of these two young women are intertwined.

Although she harbours a crush on her best friend Peter, Hester remains wary of falling in love. After all, Hester reasons that love eventually leads to wanting a family – something she can’t afford to have because every woman in her side of the family dies several days after giving birth. When Hester encounters Ezra and falls for him suddenly, – I didn’t like the instalove even if made sense in the grand scheme of things – he helps her realize that the pattern of deaths may be because of a curse rather than due to genetics.

I liked Hester; but I thought Syrenka’s story was much more captivating – and not just because I found Syrenka to be a more complex character than Hester. First off, Syrenka’s POV allows us to be privy to knowledge that Hester must discover herself in order to piece together what happened many, many years earlier. Additionally, the events leading up to the curse occur during Syrenka’s lifetime and so those events are part of the present for Syrenka but part of the past for Hester. Although I love history, it’s more fun to read about events as they’re occurring.

A must read for those looking for an enthralling mermaid tale, Monstrous Beauty was released on September 4, 2012 by Farrar, Strous and Giroux. 

Comments About the Cover: I like its simplicity but I feel like it’s a bit too plain, you know? 

In exchange for an honest review, this book was received from the publisher (Random House) for free via NetGalley.