Beth's Reviews > The Starfish Sisters

I enjoyed 'When We Were Mermaids' by this author, so thought I'd give this one a try based on the ratings. Overall, I thought it was pretty good, but a couple minor points prevent me from giving it a 5-star rating.

The premise of the story is good, and the characters are fairly well-developed. The two main characters of Phoebe and Suze were actually not my favorite. I thought Ben and Joel were more interesting, and each had such great qualities. The drama between the girls was actually a bit over the top to the point of being annoying. These girls love each other enough to call each other sisters, but their petty jealousies really got old. Keeping those secrets for 40 years was also very odd, and I feel like somehow the truth would've been revealed long ago. Also, you're really trying to tell me that Suze didn't try to look him up on the internet all those years, despite not knowing if he wanted her to? Not very realistic.

The alternating POVs and timelines were a little more confusing than necessary. I understand the reason for it, to prevent revealing the secrets until the right time. But the changes from 1st person to 3rd person didn't flow well, and I think it's really odd that the letters and diary entries from when the girls were young didn't have a full year on the date, it just showed 19--. Why? That's just weird.

The setting on the Oregon coast deserves a mention, as it felt like a character itself, and definitely helped with the overall feel of the book. The cover of the book is also beautiful.

I definitely enjoyed this book, but am not going to consider it a grand slam. I'll probably look into more books by this author.