For some time now, I have been able to observe in the editorial novelties a great presence of retelling or stories based on other existing ones, and, as could not be otherwise, many authors soon began to choose The Little Mermaid as the background of their works.
And, as you can already imagine from the title of the book I come to talk to you about today and this last comment, we are in fact dealing with a novel based on Andersen's famous tale, The Little Mermaid. I was going to say that it is a retelling, but the truth is that it is not entirely so, since the author, Sarah Henning, is not based on the story of its protagonist, but of its villain.
So yes, La bruja del mar tells us the story of Ursula, that evil which we all know for having taken Ariel's voice away, and we never knew how she became that heartless woman who had fun watching the young woman suffer. And this reminds us that it is important not to forget that we all have our own history and, above all, a past that makes us what we are.
It all starts when Evie loses her best friend, Anna. They were inseparable until the girl drowned. She was his confidant, his sister, his soul mate, and all because Evie has powers she can't share with anyone. Yes, Evie is a witch and has to live on the fringes of the whole world so that no one knows about her condition because if this were to happen, they would kill her as a heretic. But everything changes when on the birthday of Prince Nik, his other best friend, the boy falls overboard the ship where they are. And Evie sees it perfectly, it's neither an illusion nor an imagination: she sees how a mermaid who looks too much like Anna rescues the prince.
From this point on we will learn more about Evie's story, thanks to her own words and also to nuances we find that refer to the past. So this story is told at two times (although the part of the past is very brief compared to the present), which will make the reader have to be attentive not to miss any detail and be able to understand perfectly everything that is happening.
I found it very interesting to know the other side of the coin. Something like that happened to me when I saw Malefic's film because she was also a villain I loved. So I loved knowing her story, her version of the story, so to speak, so that I could judge her by playing with the whole deck. This happened to me with The Witch of the Sea. Ursula has always seemed to me to be one of the best villains of Disney, but we've never been told how it ended up becoming what we all could see. Now justice is done to it and, after reading this book, the story changes. And a lot.
I have to give it a hiccup and that is that the rhythm of the book has seemed a little unbalanced to me. Although it starts very strong and gives us a lot of information, as the pages advance the rhythm goes down too much. I understand that it is very difficult to maintain the level of the principle and that the reader also needs a little rest as far as his emotions are concerned, but the tension falls too much and is in danger of becoming boring in some moments. On the other hand, when the end is approaching, the rhythm rises again and makes the outcome explosive. The reader who is halfhearted will miss it, so from here I encourage you not to leave it and to continue until the end because you will soon realize that the story is rising again and will be very worthwhile. Word.
I've read some bad reviews about the development of the characters. And while it's true that Evie has a spectacular development, the rest of the characters remain a little flat next to her. I wouldn't highlight this as something negative, because the reader's attention must be on Evie and not on others. Moreover, Sarah Henning could have done without the other characters and put other random ones and the story would remain unchanged. Because the important thing here is how Evie becomes what we all know. So well, at this point, I will break a lance in favor of the author and I remember that this is her first work, and she still has a long way to go.
In short, it is a very entertaining story that will please all those nostalgic people who want to know why Ursula became one of Disney's best villains and who are willing to dive back into the depths of the sea to know all the darkness that swims in its waters.