Deep Blue
Deep Blue
By: Jennifer Donnelly
I first saw this book at a Scholastic book fair this fall. Deep Blue caught my attention because it also had a sequel, Rogue Wave. I bought both of them, with high hopes that I would love them. As a little girl, one of my favorite movies was The Little Mermaid. (Do you see those seashells in the picture? I collected those because I was obsessed with all things mermaid, and that included the seashell bathroom decorations at Hobby Lobby when I was a kid.)
Deep Blue is the first book in the Water Fire Saga. There are things I really liked about this book, and a few things that I didn’t care for as much. To be fair, I went into this book thinking it was a middle grade book, or a younger young adult book. However, I should have known when I flipped through and saw that the last eleven pages were a glossary of terms that this was no middle grade level book. The detailed maps on the inside covers should have been my other clue.
This book got bumped up on my reading list because we wanted to know if it would be a good fit for an elementary school library. I think that strong readers will still find it interesting and not too challenging of a read, though I do think it will be a better fit for middle school and high school students.
The back cover promises a book “rich with magic and mythology.” I think this is an accurate statement, and not false advertising at all. As I read Deep Blue I got the feeling that this story is much bigger than what made it into the book. I have so many questions about different characters and plot points, and I am sure they will be answered in subsequent books.
Deep Blue follows the story of Serafina, the mermaid princess of Miromara. The book opens with her preparing for a ceremony that will determine if she’s a suitable heiress to her mother’s throne. I’m very curious about the political structure of the country. It doesn’t take long for things to go wrong. She’s an emotional teenager and has a lot of pent up frustrations with her mother and her betrothed merman.
There’s a big battle scene about a fourth of the way into the story after she gets through the toughest part of the ceremony. I have to say, Jennifer Donnelly did a fantastic job capturing the anger and fear in this scene. I was hooked and invested in the characters. Battle scenes are something I struggle with when writing, so really admire that ability in others.
This battle is a pivotal moment in Serafina’s life. She becomes homeless and is possibly an orphan, though that isn’t confirmed. The rest of the book is her and her best friend, and some friends she meets along the way, searching for answers. They want to know the source of the attack on Miromara, but they also share the same dream (or nightmare). After discussing the dream they discover that it’s a group of river witches trying to communicate with them about their destiny. It’s not a dream at all, but a calling.
I didn’t struggle with the story or the characters. I bought into Sera’s motives and believed in the choices she made.
My little hang-ups are things that may not bother a younger reader (or a reader that hasn’t gone through an MFA program—my professors warned me that reading would be different, I should have believed them). Occasionally I would lose track of who the POV character was, or it would change in the middle of a scene. It’s very possible that this was intentional and that Donnelly was writing from Third Person Omniscient instead of the more common Third Person Limited.
The other thing that pulled me out of the story a little bit was the modification of common words to be more “sea like.” For example, instead of currency it was spelled currensea. These words are in the glossary, and I do think that some (most) readers would totally buy into it and not be bothered by it.
When I started reading I assumed this story was taking place in a world similar to ours in the distant past—I was thinking mermaids and pirates. This was me bringing my own preconceived notions to the story and not the fault of the author. She dropped plenty of hints that this should be considered more modern than that—Serafina listens to conches like an MP3 player (maybe a cassette player is more comparable). But I didn’t get the hint until they encounter a motorboat.
For some reason, I struggled to get grounded in the world. It’s very possible this was a result of outside things distracting me.
The story and characters are huge though, and I will be reading the sequel, Rogue Wave, and the others that follow I’m sure.
