Book Review: Of Poseidon by Anna Banks

**I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for review**

Synopsis (from Goodreads):  Galen is the prince of the Syrena, sent to land to find a girl he’s heard can communicate with fish. Emma is on vacation at the beach. When she runs into Galen—literally, ouch!—both teens sense a connection. But it will take several encounters, including a deadly one with a shark, for Galen to be convinced of Emma’s gifts. Now, if he can only convince Emma that she holds the key to his kingdom . . .

Told from both Emma and Galen’s points of view, here is a fish-out-of-water story that sparkles with intrigue, humor, and waves of romance.

My Thoughts:  This story starts with Emma, the main character, taking a vacation with her best friend Chloe.  They are hanging at the beach in Florida when Emma bumps into Galen...and I mean she literally bumps into him. They instantly have a love/hate relationship.  Galen is hot (of course) but really irritating to Emma.  Plus, Galen's sister, Rayna, is a little bit rude and unfriendly.  But all that changes when Emma and Chloe go for a swim in the ocean and Chloe gets attacked by a shark.  Suddenly Emma realizes that she can speak to the fish...and they understand her!

After this, Galen (who is Syrena aka merman) tries to figure out what Emma is.  He moves to her town, enrolls in her high school and makes her accept him into her life.  They must work together to figure out what Emma really is (syrena or human) and how this is going to affect their relationship and the future of the Syrena.

This book was a fun book to read but it wasn't one that I had to read all at once.  In fact, I put it down a couple of times.  One of the main things I didn't like is that it was told in alternating POVs.  Usually I don't mind this but Emma was told in the first person  POV and Galen's side was told in the third person.  It just confused me sometimes and I didn't really like it at all. 

I did like Emma.  She was funny and very sarcastic and I enjoyed that.  I also liked how stubborn she was.  Galen would order her to stay out of the water (yes, order her...not ask) and because he didn't ask, she would get in the water for as long as she wanted AND make sure he knew she was doing it.  I got a little irritated with how Galen thought he could treat Emma so I was glad when she was able to stand up for herself (although that was not as often as I would have liked).

I really enjoyed Rayna's character in the beginning as well.  She was very angry at the fact that she was married off to Toraf without her knowledge.  Apparently, in the Syrena world, the male gets to "sift" through the females until he finds one that HE thinks is suitable for a mate.  I guess it doesn't really matter what the female thinks.  Anyways, I liked how Rayna was very rebellious and snarky towards Toraf.  What disappointed me was when Galen and Rayna came back from a visit home and Toraf decides to make Rayna jealous by kissing Emma.  Immediately Rayna is furious at Toraf and Emma and falls madly in love with Toraf.  It just seemed a little fake.

The other thing I didn't care for was the ending.  It was a great cliffhanger, don't get me wrong but we are going along through the hole book trying to figure out who Emma's stalker is and what's going on and then, literally in 1 page, it ends with this crazy cliff hanger.  It just seemed to happen a little too fast.  Their was really no big build up or anything.  I do want to read the next book because of the ending but it was just too quick. 

All in all, I think this was a fun read but it certainly wasn't one of those ones that you couldn't put down.  It took me over three weeks to read it because I would put it aside to read other books.  Definitely one you should read before buying.