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Selina Penaluna

by Jan Page (Goodreads Author)

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Robert H said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

" Sorry Jan Page, Selina Penaluna just did not "cut the mustard". I bought it because it was advertised as a book about a mermaid. Or to be precise, a human who might really be a mermaid. Well, I like books about mermaids, so that was why I decided to Sorry Jan Page, Selina Penaluna just did not "cut the mustard". I bought it because it was advertised as a book about a mermaid. Or to be precise, a human who might really be a mermaid. Well, I like books about mermaids, so that was why I decided to read the book. It had a really good start, but as it progressed it became more and more disjointed, then towards the end it just fell to pieces. I have been reading this book this week. At first I was quite enthused. But it just deteriorated and got worse and worse. Today I read the last forty pages, and these were awful. As soon as I finished the last page I thought "what a washout, that was a total waste of time"

One problem is the narrative splits between several people, Selina Penaluna herself, Ellen as a young girl during the Second World War, Ellen now, circa 2000. It might help if you had a heading at the start of each chapter to say who is speaking.

Alright the book is about a mermaid, so a bit of fantasy would be alright. But the odd thing is, while I can buy the bits about how Selina might be a mermaid, a lot of bits about the ordinary humans living ordinary lives don't add up.

Ellen and Jack are Second World War evacuees. As children they are sent to Cornwall, where a wealthy couple, Charles and Clara Rosewarne take them in. Ellen takes to the Rosewarnes right away and co-operates wtih them. Jack is quite open that he is unhappy with the Rosewarnes and wishes he was back home. Yet right from the start the Rosewarnes prefer Jack. Ellen and Jack's parents then die in the blitz, so the Rosewarnes adopt them, and send them to fee paying schools to ensure they will get a good education, an opportunity Ellen and Jack would never have had if they had stayed with their parents. Ellen is very happy with this, and works hard at school for a university scholarship. Ellen wants the Rosewarnes to be proud of her. Jack wholly rebels, just goofs off and plays up at school, refuses to cooperate, shows the Rosewarnes nothing but hostility, and says he wishes he was back with his real parents in East London. Yet Jack is still the favourite. Ellen then, almost by accident, makes the discovery that the Rosewarnes had a son, Henry, who died aged four, and Jack was born about the same time as Henry, so they regard Jack as a substitute son, even though he is horrible to them. Yet, the Rosewarnes never once mentioned their lost son to Ellen or Jack, Ellen only finds out by accident, and then keeps the discovery completely to herself. Sorry, that just does not make any sense to me.

Quite a lot of this book is Ellen, as she is now, an elderly lady and a grandmother, reminiscing about the past. Right from the start Ellen keeps saying how her brother Jack had drowned. As the narrative progresses we find that ungrateful Jack ran away from the Rosewarnes and Ellen. He planned to elope with Selina Penaluna. Jack and Selina went away in a boat. The day they left there was a storm, the boat was never seen again. Two weeks later a drowned man was found in the sea, who was identified as Jack. In the final few pages we find that Jack had never drowned at all, he just faked his disappearance and has been living under an assumed name in the USA. He has married, then he has the audacity to tell his wife that he never really loved her, because the only woman he loved was Selina Penaluna, so she was never anything more than a second-rate substitute. Nor does Jack seem very concerned that Ellen had spent 50 years grieving for his loss, and the Rosewarnes had died broken hearted because they lost their son a second time. Well, really, this just verges on ludicrous. In all honesty, if Jack was my long lost brother, I think I would disown him and refuse to have anything more to do with him at this point.

Plus we have some horrible bits about sex that I really found upsetting. Selina Penaluna's father sexually abuses her. Ellen finds Jack and Selina having intercourse in her bedroom. Well, thats horrible.

And while we have an end for Selina Penaluna, who becomes a mermaid, this is just very hurredly tacked on at the end in the most usatisfactory way. In fact, the whole mermaid bit is rather disappointing.

Oh, and here's another thing. Chapter two, which is only two and a bit pages long, says that Morva Penaluna, a Cornishwoman, is with her baby on the beach, near a pool. Her baby falls into the pool and disappears. Morva is distraught. Then another baby comes out of the pool. Somehow, Morva suspects this may not be her baby, but she takes it anyway. The baby whom Morva takes home then grows up to be Selina Penaluna, the titular character of the book. Well, we have the story of the mermaid child who was taken by a human mother. But what happened to the mortal, human child who fell into the pool? That is never explained. And all this happens when Selina Penaluna is only a few days old, so she is unlikely to recall this. So how does Selina Penaluna get the idea that she is a mermaid? Did her mother, Morva, tell her? I do not recall that. Then, as Selina Penaluna grows up, she develops a wild, mysterious, unearthly beauty. Men who see her are entranced by her. This leads her to suspect that she is really a mermaid. But all we get is her thinking that she is a mermaid. We never see her doing anything that might suggest that this is nothing more than a fantasy, a "coping mechanism" she has imagined to cover up for the fact that her home life is unhappy (her mother deserts her and her father sexually abuses her). Usually when a person suspects they are a mermaid (or merman) they find themselves mysteriously drawn to the sea, then they find they are exceptionally good swimmers, or they go to the seaside and they meet a real mermaid or merman (with a tail) who introduces them to the undersea world. Or, if nothing else, they have dreams in which they are swimming around underwater. But none of this happens to Selina. BUT, right at the end of the book, almost as if it was tacked on as an afterthought, we have rather less than three pages in which Selina goes into the sea and finds she is really a mermaid, at which point the book ends, with nothing whatsoever about how she might adjust to her new mermaid life. So, while the book is supposed to be about how the title character is a mermaid, out of 370 pages, rather less than 6 pages are about her mermaid life, and these almost seem to have been tacked on as an afterthought, as these 6 pages really have very little connection with the other 364 pages of the book. WHAT AN UTTER LET DOWN !!!

Sorry if I have given you spoilers, but, in all honesty I was so disappointed with this book, that I think I am doing everybody a favour by telling them how it ends, because it means you do not have to waste their time reading it, the way I did.

As I say, I enjoy reading fantasy novels about mermaids, but I'll make an exception with this one! I'll go back to reading Liz Kessler's Emily Windsnap books and Sibeal Pounder's Bad Mermaids. At least, they don't include twisted, perverted sex, and they make me laugh, too. ...more "

Aug 15, 2020 09:20AM · see review

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“Nothing stands still, except in our memory.”
― Philippa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden

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“A habit of solitude in early childhood is not easily broken. Indeed, it may prove lifelong.”
― Philippa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden

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“Good-bye, Mrs Bartholemew," said tom, shaking hands with stiff politeness; "and thank you very much for having me."
"I shall look forward to our meeting again," said Mrs Bartholemew, equally primly.
Tom went slowly down the attic stairs. Then, at the bottom, he hesitated: he turned impulsively and ran up again - two at a time - to where Hatty Bartholemew still stood...
Afterwards, Aunt Gwen tried to describe to her husband that second parting between them. "He ran up to her, and they hugged each other as if they had known each other for years and years, instead of only having met for the first time this morning. There was something else, too, Alan, although I know you'll say it sounds even more absurd...Of course, Mrs Bartholemew's such a shrunken little old woman, she's hardly bigger than Tom; anyway: but, you know, he put his arms right round her and he hugged her good-bye as if she were a little girl.”
― Philippa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden

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