While the topics of mental illness and suicide are valuable to include in YA literature, the overall plot to "Coral" was, at times, hard to follow. Character development was also lacking leaving the split between Amaya/Hope, Brooke/Coral and so on without room for depth and complexity. The author's premise of writing the novel with mixtures of fantasy in the form of a mermaid's tale was clever and could have been really great but the subject matter/topics, characters, and plot were too heavy and complicated when it all came together for the finished product. This author has potential and I am willing to read the next novel she publishes but will not be buying this one for my library to recommend for high school aged readers.

I spent the first 75% very confused about all the characters and how they seemed to all be the same people with different names. I had to flip through and reorient myself a lot.

That being said. The author did a great job of portraying really tough topics. Depression, suicide, self charm was weaved throughout the whole book. As someone who works in the field, the author did a wonderful job of flushing out these damaged but beautiful characters.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Sixteen-year-old, Coral is a mermaid and royalty, but the female line suffers from a disease where they feel human emotions. If they get the disease, the cannot rule. Can she navigate her family’s secrets and trying times? Living at Fathom group home, Brooke suffers from depression and anxiety. She longs to find perspective and get a second chance at life. Merrick, the son of a wealthy IT father, is tired of his controlling father and chauffeurs. When his little sister attempts to commit suicide, Merrick must find a way to cope. Can finding his mother fix everything? The story is well-written and offers a touching look at mental health from various perspectives. The interweaving stories take a while to entwine but are worth the wait. A retelling of Little Mermaid, fans Hans Christen Anderson retellings, books dealing with mental health, and character-based fiction will enjoy reading this book.

I love fairy tale retellings and The Little Mermaid is my favorite so I was pretty excited to read this. It didn’t disappoint! It’s a very loose retelling, with a couple big twists. I wouldn’t call it a darker version, but **trigger warning** it does deal with self harm and suicide. I enjoyed the book immensely and couldn’t put it down. I received a copy of this from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Coral takes some of the central ideas and concepts from The Little Mermaid and weaves them together in order to create a loose retelling that brings to light some serious modern issues in teenage life: depression, suicide, self-harm. The story is centered around a young mermaid named Coral whose sister is suffering from an illness referred to as Red Tide. The story bounces back and forth between the points of view of three characters, Coral being a mermaid, and two humans.

Although I did appreciate the author's idea of tackling serious mental issues by weaving them into a popular and well-known story, there were many times that I was simply confused. As others have stated in recent reviews, sometimes it just seemed like the time frames of various events were a little skewed. I also felt like I may have missed events that happened at various points. The storytelling was not as linear and easy to follow as I prefer. Sadly, I did not finish this book completely through because it was not something that held my interest.

**I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.**

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book!*

Trigger warnings in advance - if you want to read this book, please be aware that it deals with multiple triggering topics: suicide, depression, (sexual) abuse

I thought this was a mermaid story when I started reading but it was more than that in the end after all the narratives had been connected and I was no longer that confused.

Coral is the youngest of three mermaid daughters, struggling to find her place beneath the waves in her father's, the king's, realm.

Brooke is in therapy to deal with her depression and anxiety. But she does not want help, she wants to stay numb and not connect.

Merrick is the supposedly enfant terrible for his charismatic, successful business father. When his sister tries to commit suicide, he has to step in.

Things I liked:
- how the different narratives were connected
- mental health issues
- mermaid story line
- how toxic masculinity was tackled
- well written
- did not get boring

Things I disliked:
- ending much too sweet for me, kitsch galore!
- in parts extremely confusing
- my ARC had some font and paragraph issues that confused me too
- side characters remained far too blunt, Nikki and Grim are so cool
- everybody is so goddamn good looking and poetic

3,5 stars

I appreciate the author's intent with Coral. Mental health is something that warrants discussion and representation in fiction, and on the whole, I think Sara Ella did a good job portraying the different issues the characters faced in this story. However, I did find the book's structure unnecessarily complicated. Although it all became clear later, the constant jumping between characters and time periods along the way sometimes felt jarring, as did the blend of contemporary and fantasy elements. I struggled to form a strong connection to any of the characters, which made it difficult for me to fully engage with their trials and tribulations. The links to The Little Mermaid are somewhat tenuous, too, especially as the story progresses, and that might alienate readers who come to this work looking for a recognisable fairytale retelling. In the end, I am giving Coral 3.5 stars. As I said, I applaud the author's aims and the issues she wanted to raise in this story. Unfortunately, it just didn't quite come together for me in the execution.

NetGalley Review

As someone who struggles with anxiety, I greatly appreciated the warning at the beginning. I had no idea this book even came with a warning when I first requested it, but I’m so glad that I did request it.

I was initially drawn in by the fact that this book is about mermaids. Though the story didn’t pan out as I had anticipated, I still enjoyed the story. I think Ella did a great job at portraying mental illness. I think we need more of these books to erase the stigma behind mental illness and to become more knowledgeable about how to be there for someone who may be quietly suffering. Ella’s fantasy retelling is completely raw and very emotional. It was a lot to take in, but in moderation, I was able to get to the end.

This book did not feel like some other YA books that I have read about mental illness. I got the sense of seriousness from the very beginning. I am very pleased with how the book ended because it is the truth. Not every story ends in “happily ever after” and that’s okay.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I am a huge fan of the Disney and original Hans Christen Andersen versions of The Little Mermaid and I was skeptical at first to read this book because of my love for the original version. I must say Sara Ella did a brilliant job compiling the original plot and twisted it into modern times and the incorporation of Andersen's famous quote "Life is the most wonderful fairy tale" had a flow that was captivating and jaw dropping to say the least. Fans of the original Little Mermaid will be fans of this book and I know our readers will go crazy for it.

We will consider adding this title to our YFiction collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

Let me start off by saying I LOVE retellings especially of fairytales. When I downloaded this book, I was expecting it to love it. I thought It was going to be a retelling of "The Little Mermaid" and it was to an extent. It was a little too "loose" of a re-telling for me. Though I did like the book, I didn't love it.

Lovely young adult book with heavy themes I feel like many youth can relate to. Trigger warning if you're sensitive to suicide, but thankfully I'm not. I love how the author weaves the past and present and three interweaving perspectives. Fantasy elements are included, but the twist is fantastic.

Thank you Netgalley and Thomas Nelson for providing me with the ARC to this story in exchange for an honest review.

I had NO IDEA what was happening—not until about three-quarters of the way through. I was expecting more of a Little Mermaid retelling, but this more or less pulled small elements and tidbits from the Disney fairytale version I am familiar with. I suppose I was confused about the timelines and story perspectives of each chapter.

Somebody mentioned in another review how Coral’s assimilation from aquatic life to life on land didn’t make sense and felt rather underdeveloped. I am in agreement with this, as well as a few other points of the story that felt underdeveloped to me. One aspect would be the blossoming relationship between our leading characters. I don’t know. Was it rushed? Did it just seem strange for them? In my opinion, Merrick came across as such a stand-off, bullheaded guy with trust issues/Daddy issues. Suddenly, he’s head over heels for a strange girl who sort of just appears out of nowhere? Where did all of these romantic gestures come from? (Maybe it’s me. Maybe I don’t believe in love at first sight as much as I thought I did.) The dialogue also wasn’t believable for the ages of some of these characters either (ahem—Maya).

I do want to commend the author for tackling such a sensitive mental health issue. I am only beginning to delve into the world of YA fiction within the last year, and this is the first novel I’ve read that dealt with this heavy material.

All in all, not what I expected; but that’s not a bad thing either.

<i>I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.</i>

TW: Depression, anxiety, self harm & suicide

I didn’t know what to expect going into this book. I’m a big fan of mermaid involved stories but this one just didn’t work out for me. I think it was mainly the writing and the lack of emotions I felt about the story as a whole.

That being said, this story isn’t as light and fun as some other mermaid books since it does touch a lot on mental health!

I wish I could say I enjoyed it more but I found that it was hard for me to follow and remain interested but hey maybe someone else will enjoy it more than I do.

2.75/5

"Coral" is a loose retelling of the classic tale of "The Little Mermaid". I'm not super familiar with all the nitty-gritty details of the classic, just the kids friendly Disney version that most of the general population have come to love. Aside from this, I can confirm it is a VERY loose retelling.

This book has a very interesting premise, but once I started to read it I began to lose interest. First off, the story starts out slow to the point where I'm just wondering why there are even three perspectives in the first place if the story was moving at such a pace. Secondly, I was left confused more than I probably should be. In fact, throughout the story, there were many instances where I felt even lost. I thought maybe it was the writing style or me just not paying enough attention to the story or even I'm just not reading thoroughly enough. Despite all of these speculations of mine, I will conclude that the story was written with an air of vagueness. There are topics, phrases, incidents, and memories that occur in the story that are repeatedly mentioned but are not thoroughly explained nor flushed out. For example, the "Red Tide" is brought since the first chapter but is never explained until the end.

Another issue I had with the story was Coral's transition from her underwater life to land. The way she was able to easily assimilate into the human world kind of left me scratching my head. Even though it is later revealed why the story happened the way it did in the end, I wished that aspect was developed more because once Coral was on land, everything of her mermaid life was never mentioned or seen again. As readers, we don't know the ending so to us it looked like a bunch of loose ends.

Now the character themselves were nothing special. Maybe it's just me, but I found the supporting cast to be more interesting than Coral, Brooke, and Merrick. I kind of wish they had more screen time than the main trio to be completely honest. Ever since I finished the book, I truly cannot recall anything significant (good and bad) about the main characters.

Despite all the qualms I had with this book, I do appreciate the sensitive topics that it does heavily focus on, which was mainly mental health. It was evident that the story heavily focused on mental health from the very beginning till the very end. I also appreciate how the concept had to be explained to the main characters so they can understand it better because sometimes we don't understand things that are caused by it.

Overall, I applaud the author for focusing on such important topics. However, the story had missed the mark in execution.

I had high hopes going in, as I'ma sucker for anything mermaid-related. I didn't dislike the book per se, but I found the language overly flowery for my tastes. I think I maybe would've enjoyed this more when I was younger - it just felt a little one dimensional to me. I did like the author's take on the story though, with the introduction of elements like mental health and grief. A solid three stars from me - it wasn't a bad book, just not to my personal taste.

I was provided with a free advance copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review; all opinions are my own.

I'm having a hard time reviewing this book. On the one hand, it has some truly breathtakingly beautiful moments. The story weaves so many people together in a truly unique way, and I genuinely loved the characters. I even shed a tear or two near the end.

But on the other hand, something was off. The timeline seemed...not right. Maybe if the author had included dates at the start of each chapter. I don't know, I just know that I spent a good third of the book very confused about what was happening. I'm pretty sure Amaya's age changed three times in the course of a month. Or not. Because the timeline was jumbled and I couldn't tell. The second half of the book seemed more coherent and was far superior.

The author does do an excellent job of describing anxiety and depression. The lack of color in certain parts really stood out. Once you figure out what some of the metaphors stand for it makes complete sense.

Overall, I'd give this 3.5 stars. With a bit more tweaking it could be a solid 4.

Coral by Sara Ella is an imaginative version of fantasy and discussing a disorder without being too brash. The writing is vibrant and full of sensory details. I love the way she describes the ocean from Coral's perspective. Everything sparkles and shines, bringing this underground world to life. I have never seen the ocean, and honestly, don't like waters, so I'm okay without seeing it, but Ella captured the wonder and the mystery of the ocean in her writing. As for the plot, when I first started the story, I was a little confused with the three storylines. They don't interact, and I didn't understand why the three mental issues were being told this way, but don't worry, Ella ties things up nicely at the end of the story. The plot moves a little slow at certain parts, but overall, it is a story that I believe teenagers would relate to and enjoy. A good gift for a troubling teen. Now I'm curious what else Ella will come up with.

I received a complimentary copy of Coral by Sara Ella from Thomas Nelson Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.

This book started off very slow for me. I couldn't really understand why I was being given three different perspectives until later on in the book.

However, the thing I really enjoyed was that there was no mistaking what was going on in terms of the mental health perspective of this book. I really enjoyed how dark and ominous the storylines actually were because life is truly that dark and that hard sometimes.

I would definitely re-read this and recommend to other people.

I want to thank Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have mixed feelings about this book.
It should come with an extensive trigger warning as there is a focus on mental illness such as depression, self harm and suicide.
At times it was heavy reading but I enjoyed the way the author weaves together the fairytale we know and love with the harsh reality of mental illness.
3 stars.

I really loved this book. It was part retelling (The Little Mermaid) and part realistic fiction. This book provides a realistic view of mental health and grief, while showing that it is possible to get help and work through it. I will definitely recommend this title to my customers.