9/6/19:
So I was really excited about this book after having read the premise, but I was rather disappointed. What I first of all really liked about this book was the fact the location, an eerie seaside town with a mysterious monster really set the mood. The mermonkey that prescribes books was also a brilliant idea! However, there were two things that really disappointed me. The characters were really not that bright. The story just seemed like a sequence of Vivian and Herbie (but mainly Vivian) making rash decisions and being reckless. There were a lot of times were the bad guys got ahead of them, because of elementary stuff, such as not being on the look out, which made me go: 'BRUH' too many times.

SPOILERS AHEAD
Things started getting interesting midway when Vivian could possibly a bad guy, but then the end was just... BRUH. You have an egg that seemingly gives unlimited wishes to people. Vivian is looking for her parents the entire story and she and Herbert are basically stuck in a ship that is going to be submerged in a few minutes. After getting the egg in her hands the second time (after only have wished to see what happened to her parents of the day of their disappearance), she wishes for the Malamander to come back to life. And I was speechless. I would have expected her to wish something like: 'bring my parents back and get us safely out of this ship' which would have solved everything. I think what it bottles down to is that, I felt both the motivations and actions of many of the characters to be rather weak. Despite this, like I previously stated the premise of this story remains interesting, so if the story line of the second book peaks my interest I might give it a try.

1/6/19:
Bought this at my Waterstones! I saw this one some time ago on the Walker website and my interest was piqued! :)

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