Review: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Title: Lies Beneath
Author: Anne Greenwood Brown
Publication date: June 12th 2012
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Age group: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Cover rating: 4/5
Content rating: 2/5
Buy: Amazon

Description:

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge. They blame Hancock for their mother's death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family's homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock's daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistable good looks and charm on ususpecting girls. 

Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there's more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him.

My thoughts:

On the surface, Lies Beneath appealed to me. The premise sounded wonderful. A murderous mermaid family? A male protagonist? A revenge plot? And not to forget an absolutely beautiful cover. There was no way I could not jump at the opportunity to read this book. It sounded very different and I couldn't wait to dive right in. Needless to say, I started it with very high expectations.

Perhaps my expectations were too high because honestly, I wasn't that impressed by this one. It started out okay, albeit a bit creepy. Our protagonist is a murderous merman- certainly not something you see every day in YA literature! However, it just began to drag on from there. I felt like Calder was a seriously repetitive and he didn't feel all that real to me. His voice just didn't stand out as unique enough for me to really enjoy his character. I also really wasn't feeling the romance. I just didn't think there was a spark there at all! It felt so flat and dead to me and I couldn't bring myself to really care about it.

I think this book just wasn't for me. I know it will appeal to some readers and they'll probably gobble this up! It's a very interesting idea and will certainly stand out amongst the many other paranormal YA books out there right now. Calder's sisters are incredibly interesting characters and I would have loved to have had more of them in the book! They were great! I may have rated this far higher had it been about his sisters, and not him. As it was, I just found it boring.

Would I recommend this? I'm not sure really. I didn't like it and it's made me feel very wary of this new mermaid craze that appears to be taking off. This was just a miss for me but maybe will be a hit for many people. The more time that passes (I read this back in January), the less impressed I am by it. I don't think I will continue with this series but I will probably read something else by this author in the future. Lots of potential there; this book just didn't quite reach it for me. I still adore the cover though- so eye catching!