Rogue Wave by Jennifer Donnelly

A while back I reviewed the first in Jennifer Donnelly’s Waterfire Saga, Deep Blue. Book two, Rogue Wave, landed on my desk too, so I reckon it’s only fair that I give this one a spin too. Okay, so my verdict is thus: if you’re a big fan of Disney princesses and mermaids, this series will be your crack. While I’m most certainly not the target market in this respect, I quite enjoyed Rogue Wave – perhaps even a bit more than I did book one.

However, if you’re like me and know something about marine ecology, you’ll probably notice all the impossibilities in terms of environment, but I had to keep pinching myself and reminding myself that this is primarily a fantasy story meant for middle grade readers.

“Don’t ruin it for them!” in other words. (I have to keep reminding myself, all right?)

In Rogue Wave we mainly follow the doings of the heir to the throne of Miromara, Serafina, and her friends Neela. They’re on a desperate mission to save their world from the predations of the evil Captain Traho and his death riders. For the target age group, there’s quite a bit of Games of Thrones-esque intrigue (minus the naughty bits, of course), and piles of hair-raising situations.

Donnelly has painted a vivid world that in an almost absurd way plays on all the standard tropes we know and love in a good Disney kiddies’ film, yet it has an underlying dash of grit to stop the story from becoming too saccharine. There are times when I felt that the adults depicted are a bit too oblivious, but overall, this ended up being a fun read. With mermaids, of course, and a few scatterings of ridiculous plays on words.