The Surface Breaks - Louise O'Neill

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published May 3rd 2018 by Scholastic

YA Fiction /Fairytale re-telling

Library

My Thoughts:

I have read 2 of her previous books, and yes those were dark, but this one was more dark depressing.

Gaia is a mermaid. They are meant to be pretty and sweet and without a thought in their head. But she wants to see the surface and what lies there. Her sisters are all nice and follow their father's lead (oh I can never watch the Little Mermaid again, her dad is an ahole!)

There are also Rusalkas in the seas and they live with the Sea Witch. These Kingdoms have a truce at the moment. Oh and if you do not know your lore Rusalkas are women who have died in water and come back as Rusalkas. 

As you know the story Gaia will eventually go up to the surface for the love of a human boy. And omg this girl was a brainless idiot. She was in love with someone she saw once and she thinks that he will love her back just like that ?! She gambles everything on it. Oh this story is crazy. So yes I was not the biggest Gaia fan cos she was so silly.

Oh and ALL MEN are rapists. Or at least give of a rapey vibe. Not the man she meets, but he is a narcissist. I was not a fan of this, not all men are rapey creeps. I wish there had been some normalcy.

I liked the book, and it felt depressing. I know the real story of course, not the silly DIsney version so I knew what to expect. But throw in all rapey men with incest and pedo vibes. Ugh, what a depressing world.

Conclusion:

Still, an interesting re-telling.

Cover

Nice

Blurb

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.

Asking for it - Louisa O'Neill

Emma O'Donovan is eighteen, beautiful, and fearless. It's the beginning of summer in a quiet Irish town and tonight she and her friends have dressed to impress. Everyone is at the party, and all eyes are on Emma. The next morning Emma's parents discover her collapsed on the doorstop of their home, unconscious. She is disheveled, bleeding, and disoriented, looking as if she had been dumped there. To her distress, Emma can't remember what happened the night before. All she knows is that none of her friends will respond to her texts. At school, people turn away from her and whisper under their breath. Her mind may be a blank as far as the events of the previous evening, but someone has posted photos of it on Facebook under a fake account, "Easy Emma"-photos she will never be able to forget. As the photos go viral and a criminal investigation is launched, the community is thrown into tumult. The media descends, neighbors chose sides, and people from all over the world want to talk about her story. Everyone has something to say about Emma. Contains mature themes.

My thoughts:
This one was brutal listening to. You were in her head a lot of the time and could her those thoughts go on and on...slut, skank, whore...pink flesh...slut skank whore...do not think of that word, do not think of that word. It felt so near, it felt too near. As she felt like nothingness, I felt like nothingness and I wanted to cry at times.

Emma is beautiful, and she knows it. Yes she has slept around a bit and lied about it. Yes she is bitchy towards her friends (that was the hardest thing to forgive.) She is both really nice to people and catty. She likes to dress and show off her assets. She is totally asking for it.

I so want to say the right things, but most of all I just want to go to that town and shout at everyone to stop being such effing assholes! She was drunk, dressed in a short dress, but that does not mean she was asking for it, that anyone is asking for it. What is wrong with the people taking the boys/men's side and calling her a slut, skank, whore. Why are they the victims!? Why are their lives ruined? Why is she the slut? Why are they not the evil ones who raped someone who was clearly unconscious and then took pictures and posted them online? And the horrible thing is that you read stories like this all the time. How people take sides and never the girl's side. How girls are stoned for getting raped. How...and on it goes.

I braced myself while listening, I knew it would happen and then it happens. Then she slips into that nothingness and just wants to cut out parts of herself. How she starts to hate her body, how she loses her will to go on. How her father avoids her and her mother drinks. How the only one trying is her brother and how everyone turns away. She is tainted. A liar. She was asking for it.

The ending...I did not like it. But it was sadly realistic...

I can not stop thinking about this book when I finished it. I could not stop thinking about it when I read it. If a woman wants to be nekkid and be drunk out of her mind then let her.  If she wants to kiss a million men that night. Let her. No one has to be afraid to get raped. No, she was not asking for it. If she can not say no does not mean she says yes. oh, I feel this book should be read in school, higher classes of course cos it does deal with a lot. It should be discussed. Then maybe we can stop saying boys will be boys. That she was asking for it.

Conclusion:
Yes listen to it.

Narrator Aiofe McMahon

She did a great job. I really was in Emma's head. I can't say a lot more. She made it real, too real.

Check out a audio clip

Audio CD, 9 h
Published August 22nd 2017 by Tantor Audio (first published September 3rd 2015)
YA/Fiction
Given to me in exchange for an honest review