Louise O'Neill

Deep beneath the sea off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of being human... but at what terrible price? Hans Christian Andersen's dark original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans.

The Surface Breaks: a reimagining of The Little Mermaid

Think you know the story of The Little Mermaid? Think again... This is a book with the darkest of undercurrents, full of rage and rallying cries: storytelling at its most spellbinding. Deep beneath the sea, off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of freedom from her controlling father. On her first swim to the surface, she is drawn towards a human boy. She longs to join his carefree world, but how much will she have to sacrifice? What will it take for the little mermaid to find her voice? Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans.

The Surface Breaks: a Reimagining of the Little Mermaid

I really liked that the story was around the base of women empowerment and I really liked the plot and the theme of the story and was really good for a retelling. But the writing style is a bit weird to me as the author uses brackets to indicate what the protagonist is thinking or her past thoughts and hence I gave it a 4 star rating. 

Ashley Lively

Alyson Russell

I didn't like the book at first, it felt just like a retelling of the original story but not super well done. Then about 1/3 of the way in I got hooked. It started to take a darker and more modern turn on the already-dark story. I loved the feminist spin on the story and it definitely had a more hopeful ending than Andersen's version.

becky oh

2.5stars

This story was...different to 'The Little Mermaid'' and the prince Charming din't really caught my eyes, when this was meant to be a romance and all, but still, enjoyable. But I don't think I'll read it again for a long time...this story twisted my happily-ever-after, since prince charming already had a lover and I truly detested the mother of the prince. And I hated the (was) lover of prince. this is really...can't say.

Andra Gabriela

“It is easier for girls to be agreeable, she always says. Don’t you want to make your life easier?”

“They [men] are hurried into maturity. Whereas we are forced to behave like small girls when we are grown[..]”

This book. I loved this book so much. I had a lot to do these days and yet, in 4 days I’ve read like my life depended on it. 

I haven’t appreciated a book in so much time. I thought that this book wasn’t going to be something decent because of the reviews, but damn! What a book!
Muirgen, or better said, Gaia, is a naive little mermaid that is showing her path to independence, to a spiritual and rational place where she won’t see herself as an object - a pretty object. “ too pretty to be ignored, too silent to be enjoyed”.

This book touched some sensitive subjects, so if you get triggered easily I don’t suggest you to read it. But it really is a lovely book, if you look in a diff perspective. 

They didn’t lie when they said it was a feminist novel. It really is. I feel like I’ve seen my growth through hers, how I started being more confident and myself and my powers and how I stopped believing all those gender roles that we were so used to when we were children. On top of that, it is a Bildungsroman that is just so interesting. I love this.

Chiara Vitale Zelaia

Being a lover of the Little Mermaid in all its shapes and sizes, I am constantly hoping to find retellings of this classic fairytale, and I am thrilled that so many of them are being released this year! 
When approaching this book, I was expecting to find all those elements from the classic fairytale spun in an original way. I foundthat, but I also found so much more. What I was not expecting was that I would find so many important social issues woven inside it.
As a woman reading this story, I couldn’t help but feel pure, undiluted anger at the woman condition represented. I hope that in 2018, a man reading this book would also feel a sense of injustice swimming through these pages. The mer-folk live under the bigot rule of the Sea King, where the men expect the mermaids to be beautiful, meek, obedient. A mermaid who has her opinions, who speaks her mind, who has passions and desires that are not what the men choose for them is not a good mermaid, and must be exiled. Like a doll, the women must simply exist to please men and their desires. What was even more heartbreaking about all of this was that on land, things were not much better. Women must work twice as hard to have their voices heard, and even then ”you’re beautiful”, “you’re perfect”, “you’re graceful” will come before  “you’re smart, “you’re hardworking” “you’re talented”. 
Reading about this kind of insubordination is difficult, but when you take a step back and realize that this is what happens in the real world, where men and women still do not get the same retribution for the same jobs, where there are daughters who must still submit to their fathers, where wives must still submit to their husbands. A world where women still endure the abuses of men who do not understand the meaning of the word “no” and who think they are entitled to taking our bodies with or without our consent. 
Louise O’Neill takes all this injustice and weaves it masterfully in her retelling, but she doesn’t simply limit herself to showing the problems in all their minute details. She offers a solution.
In a world that wants us all to be the same, where beautiful means silent, skinny, desirable, this book urges us to break the chain and celebrate our diversities in all their forms and in all their beauty. In a world that puts women one against the other, this book shows us that when we join forces we can bring change. 
The Surface Breaks is more than just a simple fairytale retelling about giving away too much too easily. This is a story about pain, about loss, about hope, where fiction and reality merge into one and before which one cannot simply remain indifferent.
So to wrap it up, this is a book that I recommend not just to lovers of mermaids and fairytales, but to any woman and man who comes across it. Read this book, get angry and get involved to make a change into this beautiful but wounded world.

Kathleen Boyle

I enjoyed this more for the feminism aspect than the actual story. I've heard people criticise the girl on girl hate and fat shaming but it didn't actually bother me here because that was precisely what the author was getting at. She was denouncing it and showing us just how ridiculous it is as well as showing exactly where it comes from (women being somewhat forced to compete against each other). 

The story itself was straight forward. It was the insta love that annoyed me because I feel like our character in the end didn't realise that it wasn't love and more a longing and lust for something else. The ending was brilliant though. 

I enjoyed the writing style and that does make me want to pick up more of this author's work.

Sam Kiszonka

I knew how it would end, it still killed me!! 😭😭

Ruth Parker 

I love Louise O’Neill with a passion and have read all of her books (so far!). 

This one was different from her others. Although to be honest all of her books are a little different. It’s a struggled to compare Only Ever Yours with Asking For It as they are such different books.

But they do tackle similar topics and The Surface Breaks also attempts to bring this issues to the forefront. I don’t like books that blame men for everything and while I felt like this one didn’t make it so clear that that was the intent... it was still what the book was trying to show. 

Strong female characters are exactly what I love in books but for me I wasn’t too fussed on the characters. I found most of them pretty awful.

The book was ok. Interesting. But not to the same standard other Louise O’Neill books are at!

Danielle Mellett

Pitched as a feminist retelling of The Little Mermaid, The Surface Breaks is at it’s core a YA mermaid fantasy novel with characters that are as two dimensional as Disney cartoon’s from the 90’s.

First up, this isn’t the Disney version of the tale so despite it being YA, TW for rape references and abuse. The book follows Gaia, an unhappy mermaid who’s mother went missing when she was 1 year old and has always felt out of place in her father’s kingdom. While the first half was predictable for anyone who is familiar with the original tale, the second half of the book showed more depth and had more interesting character arcs.

The main gripe for me here was I honestly found absolutely none of the characters to be likeable in any way. Most of the male characters are written to be stereotypically misogynistic and even Gaia and her sisters don’t have much personality or character develop until the last 5%.

The ending was strong for me, and definitely increased my overall opinion of the book but I just didn’t find it a very enjoyable read. In saying that, I don’t think it was meant to be an enjoyable read but instead a moving tale of a patriarchal society in which women have no escape from their predetermined fates to serve men.

Renske van de Weijer

** spoiler alert **
           Everything that could be good about this book has been done wrong. The concept was great, I thought it was wonderfull. The first 50 pages I really enjoyed. But everything that was wrong about this kingdom was not being turned around. 

It could be a beautiful book, I loved how it was written, I loved the concept of the book. And I liked a lot of things about the storyline. But it did not contain the feminism I was hoping for.

It breaks my heart to give it 3 stars.

Ciska van Bokhorst

3 1/2*

Deed me wel grotendeels denken aan de Disney versie.
Zitten een paar belangrijke thema's in verwoven maar de boodschap kwam niet goed bij mij binnen.
Middenstuk vond ik beetje saai. Einde vond ik redelijk goed.

Het laatste boek van dit jaar.
Moge 2019 een goed boek jaar zijn.

30 years after Disney's The Little Mermaid movie was released, it's time for a feminist reimagining for a new generation. "A masterpiece" Marian Keyes "A fierce torrent of a book, raging and forceful and gripping. I was swept away" Kiran Millwood Hargrave "Her prose cuts and rages and her vision of the Sea Witch is truly transformative" The Observer.Think you know the story of the Little Mermaid? Think again... Deep beneath the sea, off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of freedom from her controlling father. On her first swim to the surface, she is drawn towards a human boy. She longs to join his carefree world, but how much will she have to sacrifice? What will it take for the little mermaid to find her voice? Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans. A book with the darkest of undercurrents, full of rage and rallying cries: storytelling at its most spellbinding.

Ally Wagner

3.5

This is a good retelling of the original “The Little Mermaid”. It sticks more to the brutal story, not the pretty Disney version. The main character grows and realizes the mistakes of her sacrifices. It’s pretty good, but I wouldn’t say the actual writing is amazing. It does have some trigger warning, and this is not for the younger portion of the YA spectrum. 

ARC provided by Edelweiss!

Aubrey Erskine

To read my full review visit my blog:
 http://theshelflifechronicles.home.bl...

Let me start by first saying that I have no idea what is going on with the publishing of this novel. It was apparently released in May of 2018 but I recieved this ARC and it states that it is being published August 2019. From what I’ve read it is the exact same book with no major changes having been made. I wish some had though. This was posed as a feminist retelling of The Little Mermaid and I don’t see that anywhere except for maybe the last 5%-10% of the book.

This book was slow and followed the typical Little Mermaid script. Mermaid sees boy, Mermaid saves boy, gives up her tail and voice for feet and then has to win him over with only her looks. The boy is a self-absorbed jerk though who is more interested in partying than the family business that pays for his life and really only uses Gaia to get over the death of his girlfriend. Gaia soon discovers that the world above is no different than the world she left below the water, but still decides to chase after the stupid boy anyways.

Pippa 

Lisa van der Heijden 

I really enjoyed this one. It has a lot of elements of the original fairytale while adding new things to the story. The feminist aspect was quite fitting and didn’t annoy me at all. I felt sympathy for Gia and I loved her character arc. I wish we had a little epilogue of Oliver’s perspective to see if Gia had any impact on his life at all.

Coralie | she/her

3/5

I was a bit skeptical yesterday when I finished the book. I was a bit lost and didn't really know if I loved the story or not. But after a good night of sleep, I can now say that it was quite good.
This book is inspired by the original Little Mermaid tale, not the Disney one. I was a bit confused by how the Gaia (the little mermaid) fall in love so easily with the human, but in the end, this fact is super important in the story. Well, to be more precise, it is important for the moral of this story.

So yeah, this book was really interesting, and for those who like retelling, I think you may like this one!

Manon van Heumen

Jessica 

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Review can be found here at Booked J. 


  As always, a copy of this book was provided by the publisher or author in exchange for my honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way.


We all know I'm trash for retellings. We all know, hopefully, that I'm even bigger trash for The Little Mermaid based retellings. It was my favourite Disney film back in the day, but when I discovered the darkly woven Hans Christian Anderson one I was even more hooked on it than ever. I think it goes without saying why I was so keen on getting my grubby little paws (er, fins?) on The Surface Breaks. 

In the case of the original story, there was always this horrific shiver of cruelty that tied the tale up. Fairy-tales are bleak and spooky and full of sharp, bitter prose. Which is why we love them. It equal parts broke my heart and indulged me. Modern retellings of the stories we all know, and at times, fear, can be hit or miss. In the case of Loiuse O'Neill, and the feminist and atmospheric spin she takes with the tale, it's definitely a hit. 

Weeks before receiving an ARC of The Surface Breaks, I skimmed through a review that was quick to state a very important fact of this retelling: The Surface Breaks gives the mermaid a name and a voice. And, I mean, really, what more could you want from The Little Mermaid?

Enthralling, mysterious and still appropriately dark, The Surface Breaks reimagines and captures the essence of a the original story while crafting something that is uniquely its own. It centers around a tale not unlike what we've always known, but builds itself from the ground up in a way that surprised me. I loved the world-building, O'Neill's delectable writing and the characters. 

This has definitely made it up there with A Curse So Dark and Lonely as one of my favourite retellings I've read during 2019. No, really and truly. Cross my heart and hope to crush the patriarchy. In terms of fantasy, The Surface Breaks was a definite standout and a blast from start to finish. I cherished my time with Gaia (a LEGEND) and the story's ending left me feeling breathless, exhilarated and almost out of my mind in the best possible way. 

The best thing a retelling can do is feel familiar and unfamiliar all at once. While it had some weak moments in terms of the fantastical elements and length (and I've mindblowingly heard that this isn't Louise O'Neill's best work of fiction), I'm glad this fairy-tale was my first read of O'Neill's writing. Not only did it keep me engaged from the start, I found myself devouring The Surface Breaks fairly fast and wanted to drown in it for just one more page.

Lisa Beasley

This was the worst book I've read this year. I'm not sure what the author thinks a feminist is but it definitely is not what is in this book. There are so many issues with this and after around 100 or so pages I got so annoyed with the awfulness that I skimmed the rest. Just so bad.

The Surface Breaks: a reimagining of The Little Mermaid

Reviews