Sea Change by Susan Fletcher REVIEW

Summary:

Turtle is scavenging a drowned town when she saves a stranger's life. There's something special about Kai-an attraction she's never felt before. She would do anything to see him again.

But Turtle can never truly be with Kai, because Kai is Normal, and Turtle is one of the Mer, kids whose genes were illegally hacked before birth and who now have working gills as well as lungs. Turtle lives on an old cruise ship with the other Mer in order to be close to the water she needs to survive.

Yet she sneaks away and lies to her friends to spend more time on land with Kai. And the pull of the shore grows even stronger when Turtle reconnects with her sisters and learns that her father, who has been in prison for having her genes modified, has escaped and may be hiding out nearby.

When scientists come up with a way for the Mer to surrender their gills and live as Normals, Turtle faces a terrible choice. Turtle loves her life with her Mer friends, but she desperately misses her family. And then there's Kai . . .

Should she give up her Mer community and their way of life along with the joy of living freely under the sea? Or give up the guy she's falling for and any hope of reconnecting with her family?

My Thoughts:

I really loved reading this book. It's part futuristic, part retelling of the Little Mermaid. Most of Turtle's life was spent with her fellow Mer on the boat, but she's the only one who remembers her birth family. When the government was rounding up the Mer kids, they were able to hide her with them a little longer than anyone else, but it ended up putting her father in prison. While she loves her Mer friends, she deeply misses her family. Scavenging is illegal, and when one of her fellow Mer gets caught, they go with him to the trial, where she sees Kai again after she rescued him. After the trial, Turtle finds herself sneaking off the boat to see him. But when a group of scientists arrive and give them the choice to become Normal, she takes the chance for her family and for Kai.

While the novel does talk about gene hacking, it's done in a way that anyone can understand, and despite the topic being futuristic, the world is very much similar to the one we live in now. I really like the writing, which is simple yet engaging and fun. Turtle is such a well-rounded and likeable character to follow, and some of the side characters are also well-developed so that we care about them. I do wish the book talked more about the gene hacking and the backgrounds of the other Mer, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I would definitely recommend picking this one up.

My Rating: 5 stars