mermaids & wishing for first person pov

This is going to be a shorter review cause The Mermaid was just not my favorite, and that's okay! My main line of thinking as to why a book about the ocean and mermaids was (somehow) not up my alley is this: I'm a sucker for first person narration.
The third person narration style of this novel left me feeling distant from most of the characters and their relationships, as well as confused as to whose inner thoughts I was meant to be following since it switched around during the middle of chapters at times. As a result, I finished this feeling underwhelmed by the concluding events and the main romantic relationship that slowly builds across the main plot of Amelia becoming P. T. Barnum's mermaid. To be honest, I felt like Barnum was the most fleshed out character in the cast. I'm sure this is due to the fact that Henry could draw on a plethora of historical records and accounts in addition to Barnum's reputation as she wrote. I started to lose considerable investment as a reader, though, when I realized I was halfway through the story and not as emotionally invested in the main character as I'd hoped to be.
What I did like about this book:
- The entire first chapter. Such whimsicality in the storytelling and set up of Amelia's backstory and life on land to come that I was hooked (maybe if this first chapter was the only chapter to be in third person, this review would look different... but I'm not the author!).
- Sweet, shy, bumbling Levi Lyman. While I also felt like it was hard to get to know him as a character, he was very endearing to me.
- The commentary on what lengths people will go to to express their faith despite the hurt it may cause other people. I'm looking at you, Elijah Hunt.
- Amelia's ability as a mermaid to hold a mirror up to the uglier parts of humanity and examine the way of things.
- The rocky but ultimately very lovely female friendship between Amelia and Charity.



One of my favorite quotes from The Mermaid:

"Women who did what they liked instead of what other people wished were often accused of witchcraft, because only a witch would be so defiant, or so it was thought."

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