Customer Reviews

Sleeping With The Fishes

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

At about 250 pages of actual text, this would be a short story, but when you only use 9-22 lines per page, it becomes more of an outline of a short story. Maybe a book report... (maybe just a conglomeration of snarky comments and cartoon characters for an article in Rolling Stone). I thought the Undead books were getting way too short, but this one undercuts even those in word count and lack of substance.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every minute of the hour and a half (including a dinner break) it took to read Sleeping with the Fishes. The main character, Fred, is a cruel and sarcastic bully (beats up Dad for having sex with mom in the first chapter, so cute (NOT)), the two heroes are sexy and ignorant, there is no plot, no typical MJD sexiness, and an abrupt "out of the blue" ending. What's not to love? Simply, I didn't have time to get angry, before the entire episode was done and I realized I'd been royally conned. I can't blame MJD or her publisher, they have a great gig going, I jumped at the bait and they reeled me in. If that's what you're looking for, you're in luck.

Just know that you're buying a smelly minnow for the price of a tuna, or you'll feel a bit used when you're done reading.

By now if you've read MJD's Undead series,( or her superhumans, her werewolves, pretty much anything she writes) you should know that the story is going to be a fast read. The snappy dialogue and quick plot developement propell each of her works along. And while I've had issues in the past with her main heroines being a little too much a like, I really liked Fred! She's sulky but practical and mouthy without being grotesquily so.( This is very geeky but she reminds me of Shego from Kim Possible, for adults.)

And the other characters were delightful as well. Fred's mother & father, who she starts off the book by having an embarrassing incident with, are rich hippies. Her bestfreind seems so metrosexual as too be gay but is still buff. The intern who annoys her at work is Barbie perfect, which haven't we all been annoyed by? And even her fishy co-workers are funny in their hunger strike over tank shaking music.

Ofcourse Fred has not one but two love interests pop into her life suddenly. First theirs the hunky fellow marine biologist who travels the world and is rich from writing romance novels. Then there's Prince Artur of the Black Sea who just seems to know Fred will be his queen. Oddly the two big lugs like each other so much I could see them all being one big happy disfunctional supernatural familly. I will definitely pick up the next in this series if merely out of curiousity!

First, let me say I like the Undead books that Davidson writes, but Sleeping with the Fishes fell far short in my opinion. The plot is weak, very weak. A localized pollution problem in Boston attracts the attention of Merfolk all the way out in the Black Sea? Weak and not very believable, especially considering the pollution they're fighting isn't confined to just the villain or location in the book--it's a global problem. In fact, Eastern Europe (where the Black Sea is) has much more serious marine ecological problems than the one the book highlights.

There is little description, which I found strange considering this is a mermaid story which entails a very different environment than we're used to. I thought there would be more as Davidson indicates she researched the ocean as preparation for the story, but nope, the story is a lot of dialogue and very little setting. The characters are one dimensional and the romance is contrived-- i.e. guy sees girl and falls in love, there's no romantic build-up. I really dislike when people fall in love just because the author says they're supposed to, it's a cop-out and signals poor character development on the author's part.

The concept was great, the execution was not. The worldbuilding needed to be much more detailed for this novel to work for me and the characters needed to be three dimensional for me to buy into the romance. I won't be buying the sequel.

The worst thing about this book is that it didn't live up to its potential. When I first read the excerpt, I initially chuckled at the physical comedy of Fred's reaction to her parents having sex and their ensuing discussion, but upon reading the book, Fred seemed more dumb than quirky and her turn on the phrase motherf-er fell flat. The rest of the book was like that--a few bits of funny physical comedy and diaglogue that don't hold up surrounded by many more duds.

This book is a breezy read at 272 pages, but shallow plotting and characterization create the brevity. I was left feeling like I'd read an expanded outline or first draft. The Acknowledgements page actually mentions the author's problems with the fist incarnation of the book and the revisions that led to this published book. I can't help but to wonder if something was lost in translation or if more work was needed.

My favorite characters were fish-out-of-water Mer prince Artur and Fred's flamboyant best friend Jonas. They got the best lines and provide some of the biggest laughs.

This is one of the stupidest books I have ever read. The main character, "Fred" the mermaid, is a mass of neuroses. She's bitchy, snide and her responses to the most simple of events is weirdly inappropriate. In the very first scene, this 30 year old ph.D stumbles across her parents having sex and completely freaks out, so much so that she violently (but oh, so amusingly...) attacks them both. Time for little Fred to grow up, I think. The mystery is too easily solved and the men in her life, both instantly, and for no apparent reason, falling in love with her, are simple stereotypes of the gorgeous but smitten male. The first in a series, It seems likely that she'll soon be having a lot of sex with both of them; and simple, brainless pornography is about the best I can hope for from this ridiculous book.

Fred is thirty years old, a marine biologist, and a mermaid -- who's allergic to shellfish and can't handle sailing. This is the type of zany character who inhabits MaryJanice Davidson's cheerfully twisted worlds. The action, character development, and plots are always light and frothy, and move incredibly fast.

However, in this entry, doubtless the first of a series of books, Fred and her world come across thin. There was no explanation or exploration of the mer world, which I would have really expected from a marine biologist. No real sense from Prince Artur exactly what kind of world existed under the sea. Fred wasn't overwhelmed about being a mermaid, and she wasn't made aware of why the mer people waited 30 years to get in touch with her. The plot about the pollutants being dumped into the harbor was glossed over, and it wasn't easy to see how one hotel could affect marine life so much.

On the other hand, SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES delivered most of what Davidson fans are looking for: fast-pacing, quick dialogue, snarky views on life, fun characters who could have been drafted from the real world, and enough "hooks" to keep you turning pages.

I feel like I read a different book from all the glowing reviews below. The book was a quick read, but just okay. Like when you eat to fast you're stuck trying to remember what you ate and how it tasted. That's how I feel about this book. A mermaid lead character makes this a paranormal. Different but that's all. The mystery of who is polluting the water around Boston Harbour could have been a great hook to hang the mantle of "mystery/who dunnit" on this book, but it was only half heartedly developed. There really was only rudimentary investigation into learning the identity of the guilty party. The culprit is "discovered" during a tryst between two of the secondary characters. Ms. Davidson has a "name" in the vampire gendre and this is ( I think) an attempt by her and her publisher to give her a break from that and segueway into another series with a built in audience to follow. I'm not going to totally write this series off though. I'd buy the second book in this series ("used") to see if she does a better job baiting the hook and reeling in a better story.

Sleeping With The Fishes is like the first episode of a soap opera. The entire book is spent developing the characters, who are engaging enough, but there is absolutely no plot to go along with them.

Ms. Davidon has obviously found her formula - create interesting characters and have them do absolutely nothing, asuming that her readers will invest in the next book in the hope that the characters will, eventually, do something besides talk. I've read four of her books in that vain hope, but will never spend another penny of my hard-earned money or, more importantly, another minute of my rare time off with her poor excuse for writing.

I don't know if we all read the same book (some people apparently liked it), but it was terrible. I've read the earlier Betsy books and they were fun (a little juvenile) but still decent. This one was bad from the opening paragraph to the end. Do not waste your time (or money) reading about these hollow characters.

I'm sorry to give this book 3 stars. I like this author. Her Undead series is tremendous fun. But unfortunately this book didn't make it for me. Fredericka is a spunky, spicy female lead--yes, just as self-involved as Undead's Queen Betsy and with an unusual background to boot...she's a mermaid. However, Fred just isn't that sympathetic. Unlike Betsy, she doesn't seem to have a heart of gold balancing off her shallowness. Take the hunger strike of her fish. They're angry because she won't play Pet Shop Boys for them anymore (ba DUM dum). Apparently, she hates the Pet Shop Boys. So why did she play them for the fish in the first place? And even if she didn't, even if some janitor slipped it onto the loudspeakers (we're not told), how much would it hurt her to indulge these bored creatures? But, no, she'd rather let them risk starvation, ultimately because she's "in charge." (p.49)

In spite of Fred's pettiness, the book might have been okay if the other characters in this story were more rounded...or, for that matter, at least consistent. Our heroine's mother tells Fred that her language is "unacceptable" on page 5, but 3 pages later she's focusing on "the sentiment, not the verbiage," because she's "Moon 'Children Should Be Allowed to Express Themselves However They Wish' Bimm." Fred's suitors are pretty mysterious, particularly in regards to why they might legitimately be attracted to Fred. Human love-interest Thomas, it seems, is also pretty shallow; his motivation ranges right around that of intern Madison "I Love Dolphins" Fehr. He's always liked stories about mermaids; catching Fred with her tail out is all it takes to send him into undying devotion. As for merman Prince Artur? Who knows? Maybe the other mermaids look more like manitees. Fred's best friend Jonas is a walking gay-stereotype, like Betsy's gay friend Marc, but the big joke with him is that he's actually metrosexual. Either way, he's really just a collection of quirks and cliches.

The mystery was also lacking. There's no sense of urgency to the mission or real threat to the leads until the final confrontation. It might have helped if Fred, at least, demonstrated some passion for the environment she's supposedly dedicated her life to studying.

I think the main problem I had with this novel is its brevity. Broad margins and a lot of white space carried this to the 268 page count. It's pretty skimpy overall, and it shows. The whole thing feels rushed and underdeveloped.

So why does it earn 3 stars? It wasn't horrible. I was able to read it, sometimes I laughed, and I didn't feel like I was completely wasting my time. But nevertheless it's a throw-away book, entertainment at the sit-com level. I'm disappointed, because I know Davidson is capable of so much more.