Tropes: good vs evil, reluctant hero, fantastical creatures, price for winning
Publication Year: 2021
CW: slavery, death, violence
thestorygraph.com description
An unforgettable fantasy debut inspired by West African mythology, this is Children of Blood and Bone meets The Little Mermaid, in which a mermaid takes on the gods themselves.
A way to survive. A way to serve. A way to save.
Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata—a mermaid—collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home.
But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi does the unthinkable—she saves his life, going against an ancient decree. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy it.
To protect the other Mami Wata, Simi must journey to the Supreme Creator to make amends. But something is amiss. There’s the boy she rescued, who knows more than he should. And something is shadowing Simi, something that would rather see her fail. . . .
Danger lurks at every turn, and as Simi draws closer, she must brave vengeful gods, treacherous lands, and legendary creatures. Because if she doesn’t, then she risks not only the fate of all Mami Wata, but also the world as she knows it.
What I Rated:
Cover: 5.0/5
Story: 4.5/5
Pacing: 5.0/5
So Good I Forgot I The Outside World Existed: 4.5/5
Gave Me All The Feels: 4.0/5
What I Think:
Skin of the Sea is a YA fiction fantasy novel. The material is appropriate for its target audience, and includes a content warning about the depictions of violence, death and enslavement that a reader will encounter.
The story is written in first person and centers protagonist Simidele, a “Mami Wata” who was created three months prior to where the story begins. She was created by the orisha Yemoja (a goddess in west African mythology), to bless the souls of those who pass away on their journey back to the Supreme Creator Olodumare (a god in west African mythology).
The story takes place around the Oyo Kingdom, a powerful empire that was made up of pieces of what is now present day eastern Benin and western Nigeria. It was one of the most important states in all of West Africa politically speaking during the 15th and 16th centuries.
Simi, as she calls herself, whispers a prayer that pulls a person’s essence from their body into a special necklace she wears, and on the seventh day she prays to Yemoja who appears from the water to complete the ritual. That is her task. That is her honor. That is until she finds someone alive. A boy with wide-set brown eyes, short coils, sharp cheekbones and full lips. She disobeys her orders, unknowingly breaking a decree that was put in place before her creation. In doing so she sets off a chain reaction of events that lead them on an adventure neither is quite prepared to face.
This story is very much a hero’s journey, with Simi, fearless and hungry to undo the damage she caused, right at the center of it. She is the good guy in the story and right away we are rooting for good sis to emerge victorious. She is likable and her character has depth and dimension. What I find most compelling about Simi is the strong connection she has to her own body and to nature. She was attuned to the way her body took up space in the world, and also attuned to the world around her, in a way that made me feel grounded too. Bowen does a great job of demonstrating this in a way that comes across as natural. Her prose gets a little purple every now and then (“My mother used to sing her prayer to Olodumare when she prepared our food. She sang anytime she had the chance. Her voice was low, and sweet like fried coconut.”), but for the most part she writes beautifully about Simi and her world.
I enjoyed Bowen’s use of the five senses to ground the reader in the environment that the story takes place in. She uses language the way an artist uses color, texture and shading, and I am all the way here for it. Here are a few examples below:
“I pause for a moment as the shoal once again spirals around me, glittering yellow with delicate stripes of pink, letting the beauty of the fish soothe me.”
“I close my eyes against the velvet slip of the water, its coolness sliding along my skin”
“I try to ignore the copper tang in the water as I swim between the gray-and-white creatures.”
“The tilt of her mouth is familiar, with generous lips framed by full cheeks.”
“Her voice is both rough and smooth, like satin and sand and smoke”
“..leading us deeper where the air is more humid and the smell of the rich earth rises to greet us with every footstep.”
I don’t know about other readers and writers, but my brain LIVES for a well structured sentence that evokes strong imagery. Love it!
On other hand, one of the things I disliked about the writing itself is something that tends to happen in genres like fantasy. The author will write in descriptions that are actually explanations of the world building process, and that are for the benefit of the reader. This only happens a few times in Skin of the Sea, but when it did happen it momentarily took me out of the flow of the story. Another small gripe I had with the story was the halo effect that appears to touch damn near every significant character in the story. Everyone seems to be strong, attractive, funny, brave, talented, self sacrificing, fierce, etc. Some characters are of course given a couple negative or polarizing traits that make them feel more real, but there’s definitely overemphasis on everyone’s beauty, bravery, and fighting skills. My third and final critique of the story would have to be about the villain. He is portrayed in a flat and uninteresting way that was disappointing for me.
While Simi is the star of the show, and the orishas and mythical and magical creatures definitely make for compelling characters, I would have to say that the character I found to be most compelling was Adekola, the boy Simi fishes from the sea, and for whose life she broke the decree. As told through the eyes of Simi, Bowen creates a leading male who is complex and likable and relatable. He is strong and gentle, warm and guarded, and a ‘damsel’ in distress who plays his role well. He is also admirable in his efforts as an ordinary human boy with no more power than what comes from within him.
While reading the book I felt the world melt away. I was transported to a time and place that felt both familiar and foreign to me as a reader who is descended from people who were enslaved. I fell deeply in love with Bowen’s incorporation of west African mythology and food and language and customs. She did it so well and with such ease. I relished the chance to learn more about the Oyo Empire, the orishas and the various mythical creatures, and about foods like pounded yam and shredded fried coconut.
I definitely recommend this book, especially if you are a fan of fantasy, young adult fiction, and Black girl heroes.
