---

“No matter the uniform she wore, the exams she passed, the ideas she brought to the discussion; they would always see her as Fathomfolk first.”

What is the Book about?

In the semi-flooded city, humans are, quite literally, on peering down from skyscrapers and aerial walkways on the fathomfolk — sirens, seawitches, kelpies and kappas—who live in the polluted waters below.
 
For half-siren Mira, promotion to captain of the border guard means an opportunity to reform. At last, she has the ear of the city council and a chance to lift the repressive laws that restrict fathomfolk at every turn. But if earning the trust and respect of her human colleagues wasn’t hard enough, everything Mira has worked towards is put in jeopardy when a water dragon is exiled to the city.
 
New arrival Nami is an aristocratic water dragon with an opinion on everything. Frustrated by the lack of progress from Mira’s softly-softly approach in gaining equality, Nami throws her lot in with an anti-human extremist group, leaving Mira to find the headstrong youth before she makes everything worse.
 
And pulling strings behind everything is Cordelia, a second-generation sea-witch determined to do what she must to survive and see her family flourish, even if it means climbing over the bodies of her competitors. Her political game-playing and underground connections could disrupt everything Nami and Mira are fighting for.
 
When the extremists sabotage the annual boat race, violence erupts, as does the clampdown on fathomfolk rights. Even Nami realises her new friends are not what they seem. Both she and Mira must decide if the cost of change is worth it, or if Tiankawi should be left to drown.

---

Rating
Plot ★★☆☆☆
Characters ★★★☆☆
World Building ★★★☆☆
Atmosphere ★★★☆☆
Writing Style ★★★☆☆

Favourite Character
Nami

My thoughts while reading it

Dive into Tiankawi, a modern city half-submerged in water, a city where humans and deep-sea creatures coexist but not in harmony. The deep-sea beings are a mix of marine creatures, from water dragons to kelpies, sirens, kappas, and sea witches. This provides an unusual setting that should lead us into an original underwater world and explore the depths of the world—or does it?

Particularly, the setting of Fathomfolk makes this book something special and could captivate many readers. We are not often taken into the depths of the sea for a fantasy story, with its wonderful but also somewhat frightening beings. However, here I must disappoint a little; those who expect an epic fantasy like “The Little Mermaid” will be very disappointed, as the entire story unfolds in the upper realms of the sea, among humans. Initially, this was a bit of a blow, as I was looking forward to it, but then the “human” city managed to charm me. Here awaits us a modern city, designed with extraordinary architecture and sometimes feels like a slightly less cyberpunk world. And also, the fact that humans coexist with the sea creatures, who can take on human form, has adorned the city greatly. We have fantastic affluent neighborhoods with great restaurants and delicious food, but also a kind of ghetto where the less affluent inhabitants of the water-dominated city live. And guess who naturally lives in the ghettos…

Yes, this is a political story that effectively highlights the problems of our world and brings them into a setting that doesn’t make the issues of “immigration” and “foreigners” quite as heavy but still allows for some fun with this book. The immigrants here are the sea people, who consist of many subgroups, which alone is an interesting topic to read about, as humans tend to lump them all together, although you can’t compare a siren to a sea witch or an otter. Yet, even though this theme is touched upon here, the conflict revolves more around the “higher” human race against the sea people. As always, humans think they are better and oppress the sea people. Although the humans act quite decent and nice, you quickly realize that something is very wrong here. And that leads us, of course, to an interesting revolution plot. Humans naturally want to suppress them, control what they fear, and even pollute their waters. Yet there are those striving for change. And this part fits perfectly into this setting. Unfortunately, the entire plot was rather flat and never fully developed. So plot reveals are not really reveals since everything is clear from the beginning, and thus, no tension builds up. The whole story is just too simplistic, and after reading several political and revolution stories, this one here is just too shallow. Maybe I would have liked the plot as a younger reader, as it is not too complex. And the writing style didn’t contribute to making it more exciting to read; instead, it’s quite plain, which makes the whole thing seem even flatter. The conflict between humans and deep-sea beings was fascinating to watch, albeit a bit exaggerated in terms of prejudice.

I had mixed feelings about the characters. I really liked Nami, a young, headstrong water dragon—her kindness and her youthful drive to change the world were something I appreciated. Yes, she seems very young, but that’s okay in this book since she’s a young protagonist. Her innocence and naivety fit very well into this story, as she gets to know the human world all by herself, without being influenced by others. However, later on, Nami became constantly easily influenced, too wrapped up in her own emotions to see the bigger picture, which frustrated me. Meanwhile, Mira took a while to grow on me, and her serious demeanor was a good counterpart to Nami. Because Mira is half human and half siren, she has to try even harder to be taken seriously by the other humans. And even though Mira seems superficially like the good cop, you realize over the course of the story that she’s not always so duty-bound. Still, Mira is nice to read about, but not much more than that. And lastly, there’s a water witch. Oh, and I actually love witches so much. But Cordelia seemed too flat to be like Ursula from Ariel.

Overall, “Fathomfolk” by Eliza Chan excels in creating a fascinating, unique world while also reflecting on themes of prejudice, oppression, and political unrest. However, an interesting and still fresh setting cannot define an entire book, which is why the other aspects were rather shallow. Chan’s debut is entertaining and light, making this book suitable for a good read between epic series but not much beyond that.

Reading Recommendation? ✓✘
Favourite? ✘