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.

I would not consider this a Little Mermaid retelling, however, Sara Ella does a nice job creating a story using elements that would not normally be brought together: mermaids and mental illness. Though the idea is a great one, it is not carried out as well as it could resulting in a chaotic plot with loose ends and a lack of fleshed-out characters. Instead of reading as a singular, strong story, Coral reads as a mesh of completely different novels that attempt to intertwine but fail. The writing itself is decent, though I found Coral's point of view to be cliched and empty. She has little personality and her background is not as clear as it could be. Additionally, the lack of mermaid folklore used in the story was disappointing despite the summary hinting at the "Little Mermaid retelling." On a more positive note, I found Merrick's point of view to be interesting. Had his story been the main focus of the novel, I would have been more enthusiastic.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. If you're looking for a good book that touches base with mental illness, depression and suicide then this book is for you. If you're looking for a Little Mermaid retelling then this is definitely not for you. The author had a cool idea of intertwining a Little Mermaid retelling with a story line full of awareness for mental health but I just felt it didn't intertwine together at all. The 3 point of views from the different characters definitely was confusing at times and hard to follow with time periods. I really appreciated how much effort the author put into raising awareness for mental health and how she built the characters realistically so they were relatable. I was definitely thinking this would have more mermaid magic and a mermaid world to it and it did not. So for anyone who is going into this excited for mermaids, this one probably isn't for you.

Number one, love the cover of this! Beautiful! Number two, when does the next book come out?! Awesome story and characters!

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. My review is spoiler-free and unaffected by the free copy.

Before I begin, this book contains a lot of trigger warnings. Its main subject is mental illness, so it talks about depression and anxiety in great detail. It also goes into self-harm, suicide, and there are also hints at abuse. Please make sure you are in the right mental state to read about these subjects before going into the book.

With that out of the way, I have to say this book did not at all turn out the way I expected. I knew it was going to be about mental illness and depression, but I wasn't expecting it to describe it in such detail. It's very heavy stuff but I think it was done respectfully and-- basing it only on my own experiences and knowledge of psychology-- I thought it did a good job representing these things. At first I wasn't entirely understanding why the story was presented in a certain way, but once I figured it out I could follow along better. It also presents very realistic scenarios for these characters to go through. Even though it does carry a fairy tale aspect, the characters are multi-dimensional and have their flaws. Things aren't perfect in their lives or with their families, and I get more a sense of peace at the end than a "happily-ever-after".

The book is focused on these characters struggling with mental illness in themselves or with family members, so there isn't much by the way of plot. It's very much a mental journey. But I don't think enough books talk about mental illness in this manner, so I really liked it. Probably the most important aspect was how much it emphasized that mental illness is just that: an illness. And I also like that there was no big villain or antagonist in the story. Even the characters who hurt the main ones were shown in different lights and weren't played up as the main factors in depression or attempted suicide.

This is a rough subject to write about, but I feel it's important and I'm glad this author was brave enough to do it. It dealt with the subject in a mature, compassionate way. Remember, you are not nothing. And neither am I.

I started this book with low expectations as I do with all fairy tale based novels, and with this being based on a story that built my childhood my expectations for an adaptation were very low. I was pleasantly surprised with the plot line and characters and while the writing style wasn’t my very favorite this books was still solidly good. I would recommend this book to lovers of books such as shadow queen, spindle fire, and the blood spell.

The story is interesting but the writing is so full of cliches it’s distracting. It feels like high school creative writing class diction, which detracts from the originality of the story.

I absolutely adored this book!

“Coral” adds a twist to the classic fairytale as a little mermaid named Coral watches her older sister succumb to what is known as the Red Tide, and in her grief she meets a sea witch and the promise of human legs so she can find the prince who broke her sisters heart and find a way to save her own.

This was one that I kept going back and forth on if I figured it out and I was right for a good portion which makes me a giant nerd but also super happy.

I’ll start by saying I don’t know the plan for trigger warnings so I’ll include them here, the major theme of this book is centered around mental illness with a focus on depression, self harm and suicide. All three of these play out heavily with our characters and though it’s written in a way that has this artistic poetry it’s still contains scenes that depict acts concerning the final two I listed above so if that is something that would be difficult to read I would suggest not reading the book at this time despite the lasting message of hope and that while someone is going through this they are not nothing which I found to be very powerful.

The story does a good job of weaving together the fairytale we all know and love while mirroring it to real life and the struggle one faces when mental health is something that is frowned upon or just not talked about and the guilt or shame that the person dealing with it is left with as they try to put on a brave face to avoid the stigma.

I really enjoyed the journey this book takes us on and how just about every character has these shades of grey moments that help make them fully formed whether they are the main cast or the side characters it really helps to show that everyone is dealing with something and though you may not see it, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

I really loved this and I hope others do too and it can open a dialogue about mental health and what it means to be someone going through this and perhaps even help those who aren’t to be the person who reaches out to offer support.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**