Finally, the long awaited review for
The Kiss That Changed Me is here! For this review I’m going to
attempt to write without any spoilers, which is pretty difficult for me because
in order for me to fully enjoy the book and recommend it to others I always
look at the details beginning middle to end. I always end up “spoiling” parts
of the book which is apparently something that people don’t like.
First off, this was an incredibly long book. I started reading this back in December
thinking “I’ll be able to finish in time to put up a review for the end of December,”
but I was wrong. I didn’t finish until two days ago. And I didn’t finish
because I took my time reading… and I took my time reading because the book
this time around is so, so, SO detailed. From the book’s summary, we know that there
will be a great war of the merworlds and our protagonist must find and recruit
members to fight off the enemies. For this, she must travel unto unknown
territory, and by the end of the book, the lands she finds herself in are a
little dreamy, but real enough as though you were travelling with her. Once
again, Kristy Nicolle manages to immerse her readers into the mermaid realm,
only this time you’re not only immersed, but you can “see” things in front of
you as her words paint images into your mind’s eye. Seeing her world being
built in that much detail for me was like being immersed into the world of
Harry Potter. It’s THAT detailed. We also see Kristy’s growth as an author,
which is something to appreciate, and how far she has come from her first book
in the series
The Kiss That Killed Me.
Speaking of that book, remember in a previous review when I said
I don’t read romance novels? Well, after reading this trilogy, I completely forgot
that it was even a romance! I hadn’t noticed until the very end when Kristy
brings it back altogether and reminds the readers “Hey remember, that this book
is about the protagonist and her lover.” Even though it ended concluding the
book was a cheesy romance, I did appreciate that the majority of the story was
fantasy based, and that made it much more enjoyable.
:P Thanks, Kristy, thanks.
One thing I did want to discuss was the one particular world
that the protagonist lands in (Japan).
Throughout the book, she finds herself in different territories of merfolk, all
of which have their own myths, histories, and beliefs. I just wanted to say
that as an Asian person, I appreciate how much diversity was represented in
this book, and representation is so very important to me. As a non-Japanese
however, I cannot confirm whether or not the details of this world was accurate
from costume to customs to geisha history. However, I can confirm that as a
person of Vietnamese and Chinese descent, who has done a fair amount of
research into the histories of her background and Japan’s cultural history, that
the costume for the Empress, and the throne room of the Emperor, is slightly
inaccurate as some of the style is borrowed from China. Even so, Kristy makes
up for it by making sure there is Japanese being spoken in the novel, and that the
language use was accurate, such as not switching back and forth from Japanese to
English for no reason at all. I’m a stickler for consistent language use. The Japanese
characters all speak English, broken or fluent otherwise, to only our
protagonists, or if they speak to each other in English it’s so that the
protagonists can understand and they can hear. Also, I took into consideration
that in the Japanese education system it is required for students to take English
classes, and that there are younger mer lings that exist in this chapter so of
course they’d be able to at least speak because this is set in the modern world.
Having said that, Kristy does a wonderful job of world building here and it
shows that she did plenty of research beforehand. As for the other worlds
encountered, I can’t gauge accuracy because I am neither Scottish, Italian, African,
or Hawaiian. Anyone who is and can determine this, please do! (My most
favourite worlds are Hawaii and Italy).
Another thing I also want to discuss is the representation of
LGBTQ mers. Again, representation is very important for me and I feel that Kristy
does an amazing job here by normalising a gay relationship. Pardon my swear
here, but holy shit thank you for normalising this!
If you’re a homophobe, this book isn’t for you. But no one cares about you, so
:PBTHH!!:
Final thing I want to mention; in the first book, the
language was very repetitive and the plot was very predictable. However, I am
proud to say that this book was neither repetitive, nor predictable. I can’t
tell you with what happens during the war, but I can tell you there is tons of
bloodshed that everyone needs to be prepared for, and it was well worth the wait. There’s even a lovely
surprise at the end that Kristy has blessed us with.
So to summarise; plenty of representation, a lot of diversity, excellent language use, tons of research obviously put into this, and a detailed world of mermaids. All the more reason to pick up the novel as soon as you can, don’t you think?
I give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars.
