Fathomless by Jackson Pearce | Book Review

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Celia Reynolds is the youngest in a set of triplets and the one with the least valuable power. Anne can see the future, and Jane can see the present, but all Celia can see is the past. And the past seems so insignificant -- until Celia meets Lo.Lo doesn't know who she is. Or who she was. Once a human, she is now almost entirely a creature of the sea -- a nymph, an ocean girl, a mermaid -- all terms too pretty for the soulless monster she knows she's becoming. Lo clings to shreds of her former self, fighting to remember her past, even as she's tempted to embrace her dark immortality.When a handsome boy named Jude falls off a pier and into the ocean, Celia and Lo work together to rescue him from the waves. The two form a friendship, but soon they find themselves competing for Jude's affection. Lo wants more than that, though. According to the ocean girls, there's only one way for Lo to earn back her humanity. She must persuade a mortal to love her . . . and steal his soul.

Fathomless by Jackson Pearce has been on my to be read pile for about two years at this point. I decided to dive into it’s pages mainly because the book was super short, I liked her one book about purity and because I am a super huge fan of fairy tale retellings. Friends, it turns out that the only retelling that I like involving the Little Mermaid is the Disney movie, and that’s probably because of the musical numbers. I just am not that into mermaids and was not very impressed by this book. I wanted to like it very badly, just like I do with every book I crack open but it was not meant to be, apparently.

Celia goes to boarding school with her two sisters, and is a triplet. Y’all, the last time I crossed paths with a triplet in a book was when I was reading the Babysitter’s Club and Mallory’s triplet siblings were all over the place. Anyways, Celia and her two sisters have these magical powers. One can read the future, one can read the present sort of and Celia can read the past. One day Celia meets this guy named Jude who falls into the ocean and is almost pulled under when this weird girl comes out of the ocean to save him, Celia helps, FYI. The weird girl is named Lo and she’s pretty much a mermaid. She remembers absolutely nothing about her past, so her friendship with Celia basically has the advantage of Celia telling Lo what her life was like before she lost all her memories, because, like I said, Celia can read the past. Fathomless revolves around the plot point of Lo wishing for her soul back and trying to decide if she wants to kill Jude for her soul and around Celia gaining some confidence with the boys and falling for Jude herself.

The one main character that I enjoyed reading about kind of in Fathomless by Jackson Pearce was Celia. Like, she had her vulnerabilities and weaknesses, sure, but she also has a big heart. She really cares about her sisters. She wants to do the right thing. She also is interesting in that she feels kind of left out and apart from her triplet sisters. She feels like they are really into fashion and beauty and beguiling dudes, whereas Celia just wants a steady relationship in her life. I liked seeing her be self-conscious and awkward feeling in the beginning. I think that for me, Celia’s chapters were more relatable and interesting.

Honestly, Lo’s chapters kind of felt like a hot mess. I get it though, I get the point behind making Lo so weird. First off, she’s not human at this point. She doesn’t have human memories or think like a human would. Second off, there’s a whole big long back story as to how she became a mermaid. I am going to tell you it’s totally bizarre and was hard for me to fathom and understand. That’s on me, not the book, I guess. I don’t know, I liked when we were able to flashback to Lo’s days of being human, but for the most part I rushed through her chapters. She just did not hold much appeal for me.

Overall, I am not in love with Fathomless. I am not sure if it’s the mermaid theme, the book, or me. It is a fast read, yes, but parts feel a bit jumbled and convoluted to me. Like, I just felt that the whole action sequence (you will see if you read) was all over the place and that I had to re-read a few pages to understand what was going on and why. I never really found myself all that heavily invested in the characters or the romance. I wasn’t into the mythology. And I never had that fairy tale sense of wonder while reading Fathomless by Jackson Pearce. My recommendation is to just watch the Disney movie instead.

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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