Book Review: Mer Made by S.T. Lynn

Erika, who has to hide being a trans woman, sneaks on deck in her mother's dress in the dead of night and a superstitious deckhand throws her overboard from the ship. But drowning at sea isn't how Erika plans to die. She cuts a deal with a sea witch for more than her life--for the first time, she is transformed into the woman she's always known was inside. Her dress becomes a mermaid tail, and all it took was her voice.

However, the witch is on the hunt for the undersea throne, the seat of power. Ariel, the last daughter of the king, must marry in three days or the first place Erika has ever called home will be destroyed. The magic of true love is the only thing that can save them now.

This was an ebook that I downloaded for free and read on the Nook app. As you know, I am a sucker for any and all kinds of fairytale retellings, especially LGBTQ+ ones. Obviously this is a The Little Mermaid retelling, but specifically a retelling of the Disney version of the story (Erika = Eric). I read it for the Trans Rights Readathon in late March.

I thought it was well-written, although there were some errors (shined used instead of shone. I myself had to add several commas to the summary above). While I understand that the sailor throwing Erika overboard needed to happen so the story could happen, I thought it was kind of ridiculous. Obviously I know about the superstition that a woman on board a ship is bad luck, but for a sailor to be so superstitious that he sees a woman on board, grabs her, and throws her overboard??? No one would do that. He would be in such big trouble for drowning a passenger, especially one connected to the governor (Erika's transphobic dad). Sailors might be superstitious but they are practical. I liked Atlantis (that's what the merpeople city was called, right?) and thought the worldbuilding was well done; I want to visit it.

The problems were all solved kind of quickly and through magic: Erika is saved from drowning by Ursula who turns her into a mermaid (fair), Erika's voice being stolen from her by Ursula is solved by Ariel magically copying and pasting her knowledge of sign language into Erika's brain, plus the big issue at the end of the book that I won't spoil for you. I did like how diverse Atlantis is; there's tons of physical diversity, so Erika (who is Black with dark skin) fits right in, and there are enough deaf merpeople that everyone learns sign language by default, which is cool. It's also a queer-norm society, so I'm not sure why the Rule/Prophecy or whatever specified that Ariel needed a husband. I thought Erika and Ariel's friendship and then mutual pining was cute; the whole thing about them falling in love while trying to find Ariel a husband in three days for The Big Issue was a bit silly and done before. Overall, though, I did enjoy this short cute retelling of The Little Mermaid and would recommend it. S.T. Lynn has written at least one more Black trans fairytale retelling that I'd like to check out.

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Spice score: 0.5 out of 5 chilies 🌶 (just kissing)
Read in: March 27
From: Barnes & Noble/Nook  

Representation: Transgender, trans woman, Black, character with dark skin, sapphic (lesbian, bi/pan/omni etc. women), mute character, sign language usage, mentioned deaf rep (no named characters)

Trigger warnings: transphobia, near-drowning, misogyny, sexism, mentioned past physical abuse, abusive parent, parent death, grief, instead of having Erika agree to sign away her voice for a pair of legs mermaid tail, Ursula just took it without asking, which, hello, consent!