Review: The Vicious Deep by Zoraida Córdova

The Vicious Deep (The Vicious Deep #1)

By Zoraida Córdova

Release Date: May 1, 2012

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Hardcover, 384 pages

For Tristan Hart, everything changes with one crashing wave.

He was gone for three days. Sucked out to sea in a tidal wave and spit back ashore at Coney Island with no memory of what happened. Now his dreams are haunted by a terrifying silver mermaid with razor-sharp teeth.

His best friend Layla is convinced something is wrong. But how can he explain he can sense emotion like never before? How can he explain he’s heir to a kingdom he never knew existed? That he’s suddenly a pawn in a battle as ancient as the gods.

Something happened to him in those three days. He was claimed by the sea…and now it wants him back.--Goodreads

4 Stars

Review 

Can I just say that I LOVE mermaids?! When I was little, while all the other kids wanted to be princesses, I wanted to be a mermaid. To this day mermaids are one of my favorite (mythical) creatures, so when I heard of Vicious Deep I just had to read it. Since the protagonist is a half-mermaid and a male, I thought this book was going to be awesome and hilarious and it was!

When Tristan Hart found out that he was a mermaid, he was taking a bath and grew a tail! That can't be normal, can it? So he called his parents in and his parents explained to him that his mother was a mermaid and his dad was human, therefore Tristan is a half-mermaid, actually sorry, half-merman would be the correct term. Then, as if things couldn't get more weird, two teens pop out of literally no where and into his bathroom. They explain that they are there to help Tristan because he is suppose to be the King of the merpeople, but first Tristan must compete for the crown with the other chosen mermen.

That whole scene above was one of the funniest scenes in the book. Can you just imagine just taking a bath then BOOM, you have a tail and then two random people show up in YOUR bathroom, while you are taking a bath? That scene was hilarious as was the Gum scene, which you are going to have to read yourself! (* evil laughter*) Just kidding no evil laugh, but seriously this book has some truly funny scenes. That is one of the things I love most about Vicious Deep; the fact that it was hilarious. Besides the scenes I just mentioned above, there were a lot more funny scenes, but you'll have to read them yourselves. ;)

Our protagonist is a TEENAGE male, more specifically a teenaged popular jock, therefore he will have typical teenage guy thoughts, you have been warned!!! The amount guy-ish thoughts are not too overwhelming, but there are a good number of them. 

Tristan Hart is also super sarcastic, which I love because sarcasm is awesome (no sarcasm intended).  A lot of times in this book I found myself smiling at lines and quite a few times I laughed out loud, thank goodness I was not in public, otherwise I would have gotten some strange looks. 

Now on to the stuff I did not like about this book, there aren't a lot because I really enjoyed reading this book, but there are two things that I did not like. First, Layla is Tristan's friend, in fact she is one of his best friends and he is one of her best friends, but I thought the friendship between Layla and Tristan was kind of hard to believe. I can see that Tristan likes Layla, actually he has a crush on her, which I see more as an obsession, which we will get to later, but when I read this book, Layla was constantly rude to Tristan and it didn't seem like she was kidding. After Tristan got back, she wasn't there for him when he needed someone to be there for him. Layla just doesn't seem like a good friend, but I wish she was a better friend. 

Tristan has a crush/obsession on his friend Layla. It seems like a normal crush because he thinks about her often and he also flirts with her, but Layla thinks he is kidding because he is known as a player, so she ignores him. I get that he has a crush on Layla, but almost every 20 pages or so there is a new thought about Layla. Also when Layla walks by, Tristan turns and takes a (huge) sniff of her...ok that's normal right?? In my opinion the crush on Layla was a bit overdone, to the point where it came off borderline obsessive. 

Those two things were my only problems with this book and that is why Vicious Deep is rated four stars out of five. Aside from that, this book was amazing! If you ever see this in a bookstore or a library, definitely pick it up!

Other thoughts: In Vicious Deep, there is this mermaid, her name is Gwen, and she is super nice to Tristan. At first she comes off cold and mean, but that is just a wall that she built, she is actually really nice. She is also the person who helped Layla win a race with a merman that she offended, a race that if Layla lost, she would be sentenced to die. If Gwen helping Layla win that win-or-die race isn't nice, I don't know what is. But yes, after Tristan got to know Gwen better, she was awesome. Gwen was definitely one of my favorite characters in this book. I think Tristan and Gwen are a much better match than Tristan and Layla. What do you guys think? Team Gwen or Team Layla? If you leave a comment below answering this question, that would be so awesome and I will try to answer each one of your comments!

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