死ぬのがいいわ

THE SHORT & QUICK

Synopsis: Benny is our Puerto Rican MC, trying to keep his head down working as a blacksmith in 1910s NYC. The chance of a lifetime arrives before him, making a tank that will house a "freak" show's latest "freak": a merman. The creature from the sea, who Benny names Rio, slowly becomes Benny's companion as he navigates finding his place in the world. To everyone's surprise, most of all his own, he realizes his place is at the merman's side. But overtime it becomes clear that Rio isn't meant for a life in captivity, so Benny has some difficult choices to make.

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My Rating: 4.75/5 Series? No Tropes: found family, historical fantasy, mermaids TWs: racism, bigotry, racial slurs, homophobia

---------------------------------------- Book Pros: story feels sublimely authentic, well-crafted, and well-written. Side characters have depth and warmth. MC has flaws that are relatable and sympathetic. Relationship between Benny and Rio is gentle and genuine. Book Cons: there is a lot of Spanish and sometimes other languages that aren't immediately translated, and I'm dumb so didn't see that there was glossary in the back of book. Kind of annoying to flip back and forth, but more so annoyed at myself for only knowing English lol. Ending of book felt a little TOO perfect and didn't make complete sense. Quotes: "The sight of him ripped up everything I thought I understood about creation. One look at him and you had to wonder if the Bible had been selling God short this whole time."

"I’d lost track of all the times I had melted myself down just to recast myself as someone with a slightly better shot at belonging someplace, and here I was being offered the brass ring, no new skills required."

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IN-DEPTH REVIEW

Another book where its cover is what initially hooked me. And I was so pleasantly surprised, it has become my first borderline 5 star read of the year!! I wanted to give it 5 stars so bad, but the ending lowkey didn't make a ton of sense...BUT I STILL LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH I SWEAR

Let's start with the positives....... Where to start, where to start...I've never been so pressed to find areas to pinpoint because I just liked so many things!! But okay, despite involving a romance with a merman, this book is nothing if not relatable. It deals with some very heavy themes, especially racism and "otherism", meaning there's a lot of hard to swallow language thrown around in the book. And as much as it is a sign of the times the book is set in, these issues have not disappeared from society today. So even if you're not a migrant gay man with asthma from Puerto Rico, you can still relate to the characters in this book. The author doesn't hide or dance around the bigotry of the antagonists, it's front and center and a pivotal part of Benny's life, and he himself is even forced to come to terms with his own biases. The love story between Rio and Benny is so gentle. I have no other words for it. They treat each other so gently, at some points they become the only source of comfort for each other. Sometimes I feel books nowadays have lost the spark of genuine romance. This book brings it right back, brings wanting to woo someone back. It was a joy to read about their slow yet constant relationship. Also the author was so dang good at writing emotional prose, I was so swayed and immersed into the scenes when Benny and Rio were together.

On the other side of things....... I truly do not have a lot of negatives, but the one that I do have would sort of be a spoiler. I do try to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible, so I'll try to word this as carefully as possible. Right off the bat, I'll just spoil it now, there is a happy ending. I love happy endings. This happy ending, however, was...odd. As in, I'm not sure where it came from. I'm not sure if I missed hints throughout the book, but when the ending happened, I was a bit stunned at the explanation, or lack thereof. My imagined happy ending that I was thinking would be a good solution was not even close to the ending we get. It was a bad ending, it just left me a little bemused.

Secondly, I did see some reviews say they were frustrated with Benny during the middle of the book, or that it moved slow. I respectfully disagree. This book is full of imperfect characters. I thought Benny's internal struggles were very real and understandable. I'm not sure if I could have brought myself to do some of the things he did. I can see why some readers would find his hesitancy frustrating, but I think it's an important part of the joy the ending brings.