Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs is about a teenage, mermaid princess and her accidental love bond to the boy next door, Quince. Lily, our princess mermaid now has to travel back under the sea to her home Thalassinia and get her father to revoke the bond, but it’s harder than it seems as her father delays her and she gets closer to Quince.
Lily started living on land in Florida when she was 14 and found out that her mother was a human. Raised a mermaid, Lily traded her life for high school and legs. Lily is in her senior year when we meet her and she is pining after a boy named Brody, a boy she wants to be bonded to and live the rest of her life with.
When Lily gets shot down by Brody after she asks him to the halloween dance, Quince tells Lily he’ll make a plan for her to meet him in the library and kiss her, the bonding event. When Brody is a no show, Quince takes his place and kisses Lily bonding them together and bringing Quince into the underwater world.
The two then travel to Lily’s true home in Thalassinia and work to get unbonded. Lily’s father and most of the town likes Quince, but Lily won’t stand for it. Quince and Lily go through two weeks of tests before a final test is to truly decide if they should be unbonded and if love is present in their bond.
I am very impartial about this book. I loved the idea and was hooked on the book, but the story is very predictable and I wasn’t all that attached to Lily’s character. I felt like Lily was very wish washy and I didn’t enjoy that. I did love Quince, although I wish he’d spoken the truth more and wasn’t described as the clichéd ‘bad boy next door’ look.
I think fans of Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver and fans of The Faerie Path by Allan Frewin Jones will enjoy this book. I recommend this book for middle school kids and up. There is cursing, but in an oceanic form, and there is some kissing. I think most will find they liked this book despite its flaws.