Of Poseidon (Of Poseidon #1) by Anna Banks

The prince of Syrena, Galen, is sent to land to find Emma. He's heard that she has the special power to communicate with fish and is therefore royal. However, things are more complicated than he thought and Galen and Emma have to figure out which world they belong in. 

I'll start with the positives. The cover is beautiful and I really like the idea of the story. I also really like the name Galen. I'm always reading and searching for really cool names to name my future children. At first I thought, "Whoa! Galen! That's an awesome name!". But then I thought more about how he would probably get made fun of... But anyways! Emma was a fresh voice and I liked how she and Galen interacted. This book made me laugh out loud at multiple times because of the clever wording and characters of Rayna and Toraf.

Now to the negatives. First, I found it very disturbing that **SPOILER** Emma's BEST FRIEND dies, and she seems hardly affected by it throughout the book. I mean, that's pretty traumatizing. I just don't think the author fully reflected the devastation, guilt, and confusion that Emma should have felt. I also disliked how the story was told. The flap claims that it is "Told from both Emma and Galen's points of view", however Emma's is told from a 1st POV and Galen's is a 3rd POV. That is really confusing and I don't know why the author did that. I think she should have done one of those story tellings that is so popular now where the characters alternate but their name is at the top of the chapter and they both speak in 1st. My last complaint is about the plot. Or the lack of it. There was literally nothing going on because they got next to nothing accomplished. It was clear that the author was planning a sequel, which is no excuse to make your first book go nowhere!

I wish that there had been more description of the Syrenans and their world and customs and everything. Sadly, I have to give this book 3 out of 5 stars. It really does have a lot of promise, so I think I'll be reading the next book and see if that redeems it.