I was REALLY excited about reading Mermaid Magic by Lucy Cavendish and Serene Conneely, as in case you hadn’t guessed, I freakin’ LOVE mermaids and wanted to learn new ways of incorperating them into my spirituality.
I was REALLY disappointed to find that this book was pants.
What I find in Lucy’s writing style is that there is a lot of talking without saying anything – I guess it could be described as poetic writing, which is nice if you are into that sort of thing. I am not. I found that so, so little was actually said about mermaids in this book.
The last 150 pages of the book (almost half of the book) talk about healing springs, different kinds of whales and turtles. Lots of disjointed listed facts about springs around the world and whales and dugongs and Japan’s fishing habits, and a lot of romance about dolphins of course. Nice enough, but NOTHING about mermaids.
There is a 13 page chapter about connecting to your Inner Mermaid, which is very nice, an interesting 6 page chapter on Sea Priestesses, and a nice 20 pages or so about sea witches, connecting with mermaids and singing. The rest of the book is mainly made of generic lists of stuff – lists of oceans, lists of mermaid-related crystals, lists of famous mermaids, lists of sunken continents, lists of divination methods, lists of mermaid history, lists lists lists, and a little bit about mermaid legends and goddesses.
This book starts with three full chapters of lists – chapter one, paragraphs from around 20 different people saying what they think mermaids are, chapter 2, a timeline of everything mermaid related that the authors could find, and chapter 3, a list of pop culture mermaids.
I read this book, and it felt to me that the authors had nothing to actually say about mermaids, so they gave us a load of facts about the ocean instead. I thought – no, maybe I was reading it wrong, there MUST have been lots of good stuff about mermaids in this 360 page book – so I skimmed it again. Nope. Lists, dolphins, sea-related divination, but almost nothing about actual mermaids.
I understand that magic with mermaids would intertwine with sea magic, as they are the personification of the sea, and the book’s full title was “Mermaid Magic: Connecting With the Energy of the Ocean and the Healing Power of Water”, but I didn’t realise when I bought this book (it was pretty pricy) that it was going to be a book that was 5% mermaids, 95% ocean related stuff and that it’s content would be 5% practical information to apply to spirituality and 95% lists and facts.
I did like the interviews with mermaid people (one of the reasons I was so keen on the book) and it was very interesting how people from different walks of life ( writers, artists, surfers, professional mermaids) are affected and inspired by mermaids, though I would have been happier if the interviews were actually interviews with probing questions rather than the interviewee giving a brief overview of their work/business and what it has todo with mermaids.
So chaps, this is not really a book about mermaids at all. Pick it up if you see it at the library, but otherwise, don’t bother, unless you are after stories about dolphins and whales and stuff, and if so I’d still recommend that you visit the Animals and Zoology section of your library and rent out a book or a DVD from there instead.
Sad faces all round 🙁