Du Livre: Forgive My Fins Review

Lily Sanderson has a secret, and it’s not that she has a huge crush on gorgeous swimming god Brody Bennett, who makes her heart beat flipper-fast. Unrequited love is hard enough when you’re a normal teenage girl, but when you’re half human, half mermaid like Lily, there’s no such thing as a simple crush.
Lily’s mermaid identity is a secret that can’t get out, since she’s not just any mermaid – she’s a Thalassinian princess. When Lily found out three years ago that her mother was actually a human, she finally realized why she didn’t feel quite at home in Thalassinia, and she’s been living on land and going to Seaview high school ever since, hoping to find where she truly belongs. Sure, land has its problems – like her obnoxious, biker boy neighbor Quince Fletcher – but it has that one major perk – Brody. The problem is, mermaids aren’t really the casual dating type – when they “bond,” it’s for life.

When Lily’s attempt to win Brody’s love leads to a tsunami-sized case of mistaken identity, she is in for a tidal wave of relationship drama, and she finds out, quick as a tailfin flick, that happily-ever-after never sails quite as smoothly as you planned (goodreads).

Lily Sanderson is half mermaid and half human, she has lived in the sea for all of her life and she wants to get a taste of the world that her mother comes from. At Seaview (haha, she's a mermaid living in a town called Seaview) High School she falls in love with the star swimmer, Brody. Despite having had more than a few conversations with Brody, she has decided to that she wants to take him to meet and her King Daddy and spend the rest of her life with him. All seems to be going well, until Quince Fletcher steals her first kiss.

This is my first mermaid novel (if you don't count The Little Mermaid...) and I was pleasantly surprised. The characters were charming, the world was vast and the plot kept me glued to the edge of my seat. While Lily's infatuation with Brody is a bit odd at first, but as I got to know Lily's naive personality I understood how she loved anything that reminded her of home. The story was definitely not what I expected (a very interesting rule of mermaidism...)but I liked that we got to see both worlds on more than one occasion.

The characters were memorable and I adored Lily's naive nature and determination. I also felt with her when she was distraught over her place on this earth. Lily's father came off very "King Tritonish" to me and I just could not shake that image from my head the entire time. While some of the characters were stereotypes of high school I enjoyed all of them and their interactions. At the beginning, Quince's ability to pop up randomly annoyed me, I did grow to like him as his relationship with Lily progressed.