| $@%&! level: Low (if any) “Bedroom” level: Low (if any) Violence level: Low Back Cover: “Since the day when her father's fishing boat returned without him, Periwinkle's mother has stared into the ocean, dreaming of the kingdom beneath the waves. Unable to control her feelings any longer, and wishing her mother could be the way she once was, Peri uses what small magic she knows to hex the sea. And because of that charm, into her drab life come the King's changeling sons—half earth-bound, half water-bound—a young magician, and finally, the love that the sea stole from her.” |
And Peri fits perfectly into that atmosphere. She's the deep-thinking, introverted sort who doesn't talk because she's so busy noticing everything. She also doesn't seem particularly surprised by much of anything. I have a hard time imagining her in a true state of panic, much less hysterics, and she has a refreshing lack of self-consciousness, literally not much caring what people think about her or what she looks like. She sees that something needs to be done, she decides to do it, and she does it. You've got to admire a person like that, whether her dress is slowly turning into rags or not.
I also really liked both of the princes, for completely different reasons. One of them is rather dark and brooding, and ends up being the official love interest. The other one is childlike and sweet, and comes to Peri to learn how to be human. That's actually a bit of a spoiler, but it's an obscure one, so I don't feel at all guilty for it. And then there's the magician, who is just as odd as Peri, but with a touch of absurdity to add some humor to the story.
As you can guess from the above, the story is very character-driven, and a series of odd things happen to the characters (which make absolute sense and all stem from Peri hexing the sea, like a line of dominoes) to move the story to its evenual conclusion. If I had to describe the whole thing in one sentence, I'd say that it gives me the same feeling I get sometimes when looking at the ocean, or up into a starry night, a kind of sweet longing for something unnamed, which is sweet because it is unnamed. That's the magic of it.