Mermaids: The Myths, Legends & Lore ( Book Review )

“You’ll know that a person has been drowned by a nix if you see blue spots speckling the victim’s recovered body.”

Rating: Mixed Feelings

Synopsis

Mysterious, magical, and mesmerizingly beautiful, mermaids have enchanted humanity for thousands of years. No matter where you go on Planet Earth you’ll hear stories of the elusive and evocative sea creatures, who are sometimes benevolent, sometimes destructive, but always alluring. They swim the seven seas, splash about in rivers and lakes, and even frolic in fountains and wells. And these tantalizing creatures play a more important role in today’s society than you might think. (source: Amazon

Overview/Structure

Hardcover. The cover of the book is a toned down cyan with a simple design. Not terribly eye catching but it gets the point across. The inside of the book attempts to follow the same sea theme but the cyan-colored font is much darker, readable. There are many illustrations throughout the book also dual-colored in lighter and darker tones of cyan. The book is composed by lore and myth, separated by continent and accompanied by trivia pertaining to ‘mermaids’ in general.

Caveats

• Not a fan of the small lettering to fit more words in a page approach. It’s not crazy small but enough that it would make my eyesight tired after awhile.

• While the trivia specifically mentions mermaids, it deviates strongly from ‘myth, legends and lore’. While some bits were of interest, others were simply things I could not care less about. Below is an example.

“ The 1984 comedy Splash, starring Daryl Hannah, gives the mermaid’s shapeshifting nature a new twist. In the movie, when her fishtail dries, it transforms into a woman’s legs.”

Final Thoughts

The book originally retailed for $20.00. Now, it is lowered to $16.00. I picked it up around $9-10 so it was an interesting read at a decent price. Had I paid the initial $20.00, this review would have been heavily negative.

For the price, the information gathered on mermaids and the tidbits on trivia? It was an ‘okay’ book. Not a huge favorite.