This was a really quite a quirky YA novel! I enjoyed the premise of having to help a human to fully complete the mermaid transition and what a perfect human to help!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This was a disappointing read unfortunately. The story fell flat. I was hoping for more and was just bored. I'm sad because of the representation in the book, I wish it was more of a successful read for me.

I really enjoyed this, I loved the way the ending went. It definitely surprised me in a good way and I found it to be a positive message about self worth.

So I thought this book was a graphic novel for some reason. But once I got pass the shock of finding it wasn't I really enjoyed the story.

The story was a little up and down and I didn't get why some character just hated each other. Yes that does happen in real life but I want to know why they hated each other. The story felt rush in area but other then it's enjoyable

If you're looking for a summer read, this is the one for you!

Out Of The Blue has massive summer vibes, not to mention the fact it's a non-binary mermaid romance. Hell yes, on so many levels. It's even got fake dating!

The first thing I loved about this was that Sean, one of our MCs is just a normal person. He's a life guard so I was waiting for descriptions of his rippling abs but nope, he's got a normal figure and I loved that and how much Ross loved it themselves.

The second thing I loved after the body positivity was the non-binary rep and Ross in general to be honest! Ross is Mer and in the world of the Mer gender identities aren't a thing, so all Mer are non-binary and use they/them pronouns. Ross was also just really cute, if I'm being honest.

The romance was cute, with a bit of spice thrown in and despite all the drama it wrapped up nicely although I wasn't a fan of the almost cheating scene, it all wrapped up nicely despite all the drama!

I had a good time reading this, it was fun and easy to read. Sean really loves movies and shoots his own films so I loved the little touch added to his narrative that involved him doing a script style scenario and concept. Plus there were some great movie references thrown in too!

The only issues I really had with this, was the pacing which felt a bit inconsistent and the world-building to an extent felt very at odds with the more mature tone to the book at points, like it came across as kind of middle-gradey in places like a fairy tale. I also can't say I was a big fan of Sean's bestie, though I did get where she was coming from to an extent and I kind of figured Ross's decision so the dithering around and false hope was a bit frustrating!

This delightful rom-com follows fish-out-of-water (literally!) Cress, who has one month to help a human in order to become a mer elder and spend the rest of his life in the Blue, and lifeguard Sean, who’s determined to win back the boyfriend who broke his heart. The two will have to work together to reach their goals, and find themselves and each other along the way. If you’re looking for a light rom-com with merpeople, body positivity, and a ridiculous amount of movie references, this book is perfect!

I genuinely don’t know who the audience was for this book. But I can tell you it certainly was not me. The plot and story and majority of the language is so juvenile I could’ve sworn it was written for 13 year olds. But then it had some really odd, unexpected, frequent discussion of sex. It’s totally fine for a book to be sex positive it just was very disjointed for me. I really loved that the dual narrations, they felt like completely separate people. I think that was well done.

Rep: gay MC, non-binary MC

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of this book.

A wonderful story about two people finding their way.
It's cute, it's funny, adorable, sometimes sad, mostly happy and overall a wonderful summer read.
The characters are interesting and three dimensional. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who's into stories where people from different worlds connect with each other and learn from one another.

Crest is a mer, heading off on their month-long Journey to experience life as a human before deciding whether to remain on land or return to the sea to begin adulthood as a mer. When they arrive on land, in a human body with a new human name, Crest meets a human lifeguard named Sean. As the relationship between Sean and Crest grows, the nonbinary mer’s plan to get through their month on land as quickly as possible begins to change, and both Crest and Sean must decide what their futures hold. This was cute and a sweet romance, appreciated the body positivity a lot. Not totally sold on the mer worldbuilding, which felt a little silly to me sometimes, but not sure if that's my perspective as an adult who read too much weird fanfiction as a teen? lol

A bit late to this one - didn't see it on my NetGalley shelf.

Super speedy, super cute, super summery romance.

The tropes were all there but that didn't detract from the story. Ticks every box you'd expect to be ticked when you read the blurb! My students will love it!

3.5 stars rounded up

I wanted this one to hit different. It was one of my top anticipated reads of the year. It was just too quick-paced to allow the plot to breathe. Granted, it had to be, Crest/Ross only has a month on land but there was just these aspects of the plot that needed more attention.

The ending itself could have been expanded on more, as well. How did that epilogue come to be?

I dunno, it just wasn’t that PUNCH of a book I was expecting it to be. Still a cute little read though!

What a sweet book!

That cover hooked me from the beginning, mermen?? Yes, please! This was such a sweet story and also a fun one too! I really enjoyed the plot, the characters and the romance of this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harpercollins for the earc in return for an honest review

So my book has a nice summertime vibe to it. Takes place during the school year, but it’s Southern California. We’re by a beach. We are around a pool. So I think this fits in just great. And it’s also a great YA read. It’s Jason June’s “Out of the Blue.” Now you may recall, I loved Jason June’s YA debut last year with “Jay’s Gay Agenda,” and he’s captivated me once again by offering a completely different kind of story with this year’s “Out of the Blue.” What’s different? Well it starts with a mer person coming on to land.

Crest has to follow the mer tradition of coming on land for a month, or in other words a moon cycle, to help a human solve a problem. Once that’s done, they can return to the sea and become an elder. Or, if they chose they could stay on dry land and become human forever. Crest does not want to do this. They see absolutely no reason for this journey to live with the dirty, evil humans.

On land, Crest takes on the name Ross and almost immediately meets Sean, a lifeguard who thinks they need help when they wash up on the beach. Ross is disoriented, but also isn’t thrilled to have this human in their space as they try to get they’re bearings. Sean only wants to help and eventually Ross capitulates. In pretty short order, they think Sean might be who they can help too as Sean wants to get back with the his boyfriend who recently dumped him.

As you might imagine a fake relationship is soon born as a way to make Dominic jealous so he’ll want to take Sean back. As with any fake relationship though, it doesn’t take long before Sean and Ross catch feelings for each other. Neither of them expect it, or really knows what to do with it. Even more so for Ross because they never thought they could fall for a human.

Jason June does so much with this story and the characters. Let’s start with Sean. He’s a high school senior, a solid performer on his school’s swim team, and he’s an aspiring film maker looking to get into a good film school. He looks at a lot of life as a film maker might seeing how things would break down in a shot list. I particularly like how Sean doesn’t have a swimmer’s body and how that’s presented in a very positive, non-issue way–right down to how he looks on the gorgeous cover which is illustrated by Ricardo Bessa.

Then there’s Ross, or Crest, you can tell how much Jason June loves merpeople with how they’re set up in the world and how Crest has to interact with all these humans. They’re standoffish at first, but they’re journey to not only understanding humans better, but considering a relationship with one is such a beautiful story. They’re stranger-in-a-strange-land story plays so well with the fake relationship and coming of age story lines that it’s just really perfection.

There’s some stunning twists and turns along the way that make the story so rich, and really throw our heroes for a loop. I gasped more than once at what Jason June threw at Ross and Sean, and how he brought them through it all. These two not only grew together beautifully, but they each come out on the other side of the book as better individuals than when we met them–which really says a lot because they were both pretty great at the start of the book already, even if Ross was a little standoffish about humans.

Now you may notice that I’m not saying a whole bunch here. I don’t want to give up too many spoilers. Jason June has created some amazing characters here and set up an amazing world for this story to take place. And it’s really something I think that should be on everybody’s reading list because it’s fun, it’s insightful, it’s a little bit of fun adventure. It’s so wonderful to see a YA book that presents some of these themes, but in a completely unique and different way.

I’ve got to give the audiobook for “Out of the Blue” a shout out too. It was excellent with narration from André Santana and Neo Cihi. These two bring Ross and Sean to live so well, especially the various emotions they run through–and they do run through them all with what’s going on in the story. I’m really happy I read this book with the audio because it added great dimension to an already excellent story.

I highly recommend “Out of the Blue” by Jason June for your reading list, especially if you’re headed to the beach. Given the seaside setting, why not read it by the sea if you can.

A cute little rom com about a boy and a mer. Kind of boring at times. Kind of cliché at other times. There were a few moments that made me smile.

I was not able to finish this book in time, but my library has purchased it. I hope to revisit and review when I have a bit more time

This book gets four stars from me, almost exclusively because of the inclusion of a nonbinary POV character. I enjoyed the humor in this a lot as well. I also was a big fan of the worldbuilding around merpeople — I enjoyed that this was A Paranormal Book that involved merpeople instead of your standard werewolf, etc. I feel solidly neutral-to-positive about this book; I think it was cute and nice but it’s not going to become one of my favorites.

I really liked this story, but I loved the message it conveys more. This is a story about self-love under guise of a romance. There is romance and plenty of it, but the final message is what matters most.

Can I just start out by saying this book was amazing!! It just gave me this feeling of not wanting to keep reading cause then I’d be finished with this great book. It’s written very well, very inclusive which we love! Really just a great read.

I think I'm ready to give up on mermaid books because while this wasn't nearly as graphic as Coming Up for Air, I was still uncomfortable with the book discussing, like, mermaid sex and pleasure? Just...not my thing. Overall, this was a cute YA contemporary with some magic thrown in (because duh, merperson) and I liked the angle of The Journey and the discussion of gender, but overall, it fell a little flat for me. Also, can it even be called a romance since not only do they not end up together, but Crest goes back to their merpeople and Sean stays on land??

This was a cute, queer rom com that had good LGBTQ+ rep, merfolk, and some real cute charm. Ultimately, however, I think that the character of Crest just fell a bit too flat for me, and the mer-isms that were laid on VERY heavily in the beginning threw me out of the book too much.