May

May (Daughters of the Sea, 2) by Kathryn Lasky, 2011. Published by Scholastic Press. Source: Publisher for review.

May feels her life drying up. The sea calls to her, but her parents forbid her from swimming. She longs for books, but her mother finds her passion for learning strange. She yearns for independence, but a persistent suitor, Rudd, wants to tame her spirited ways. Yet after her fifteenth birthday, the urge to break free becomes overpowering and May makes a life-changing discovery. She does not belong on land where girls are meant to be obedient. She is a mermaid-a creature of the sea. For the first time, May learns what freedom feels like-the thrill of exploring both the vast ocean and the previously forbidden books. She even catches the eye of Hugh, an astronomy student who, unlike the townspeople, finds May anything but strange. But not everyone is pleased with May's transformation. Rudd decides that if can't have May, no one will. He knows how to destroy her happiness and goes to drastic measures to ensure that May loses everything: her freedom and the only boy she's ever loved.

First Sentence:

The Fog had set in thick after the storm, pushed by a southeast wind.

Since I finally had a chance to read Hannah I thought I would just go ahead and read May while the first book was still fresh in my mind. I found that I enjoyed reading May a lot more.


One, if not, the main reason I enjoyed May more than Hannah would have to be that it didn't take practically the whole book for her to find out what she was (if there's one thing that annoys me about books is when it takes the whole book for the MC to figure out what the reader has known since they picked up the book).

At times, the characters and their personalities made me think of Disney's Beauty and the Beast (which incidentally kept songs from the movie running in my brain while reading). I bet your probably wondering how on earth my mind made that connection, well, let us just start with the fact the May had her very own Gaston. Rudd is so on my list of characters that I HIGHLY dislike...and would very much like to smack because he's such a jerk.

As a character I found May to be a stronger, more interesting MC then Hannah was. It was just so much easier to get caught up in her story and the joy that she felt when she discovered who she really was. I really enjoyed that May was a strong character willing to stand up for herself, which made her a more likable character.

One of the things that made this book so interesting was that there was just a smidge more of a sense of danger for the MC then the previous book.

I felt like the characters were a little more developed in this book, and that the there was (a ton) more tension between the protagonist (May) and all the other characters. I especially liked how tense and well-written all the scenes with May's mother were. They left me wondering what on earth that crazy loon was going to do/say next; I also liked the extreme contrast between her two parents. On one hand you had Hepzibah who was done right mean and crazy as a loon, and on the other you had Gar who absolutely loved May.

My favorite part of May, the second book in Kathryn Lasky's Daughters of the Sea series, would have to be May's search for her past and the extremes in which she went to find out where she came from.

While I found May to be a highly enjoyable read, there were a few points when the story seemed to slow down and cover/press the same point repeatedly, like, the fact that she knew she had sisters, but had not found them yet. Even though this one fact irritated me, it did not detract any from my enjoyment of the book.

Final Verdict: May was a fascinating read about one girl's search for the truth. A true page-turner that has left me wanting to know what will happen in the next Daughters of the Sea book.

May earns 5 out of 5 pineapples.

Daughters of the Sea:
Hannah
May
Untitled



For the FTC: This book was sent from the publisher for an honest review. All views expressed are mine (I do this for fun, not for monetary gain *because there's isn't any*).