This book is horribly written. Though the book is a notebook the main character writes, that doesn't mean the writing style, grammar rules, and editing go out the window. I can understand that some of that is to mimic the diary-type story, but it was so bad it took me out of the story. This is sad because this story is so interesting! I liked that this wasn't a typical mermaid story. The author was imaginative and creative when it came to the mythos of the mermaid world.

Till Human Voices Wake Us is a refreshing new take on the idea of mermaids and insanity. After all, how do you confront the idea that something you thought relegated to children's stories is completely real, and totally different from the way the stories portrayed them? An engaging read that you won't want to put down for one minute, perfect for fantasy and thriller fans alike.

It wasn't bad. It's just that the main character is cold hearted and painfully mean to the ones who love him and that completely shut me from him. There is action and psychology, some very deep, gore, nazi like experiments that touched some sensitive strings like nothing before, but really I couldn't find it in me to care for Milo and so the whole book suffers a bad feeling I couldn't shake off. Maybe the last pages give me hope, but he's been flipping his mind so many times before, I'm not sure he can fix himself.

This author is one of my favorites and she writes with so much variety. Not one of her series is close to being like another. She writes with a variety and a understanding of men, women, politics, history, etc. Nothing that Johnson writes is mediocre.

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review. The thoughts expressed are my own.

In the prologue and first chapter, I started to wonder if I had misunderstood the subject matter of this story. Then it all fell into place. The protagonist, Milo, only thinks he's crazy because he couldn't really have seen mermaids, right? I quickly got caught up and started devouring the story.

There were a lot of layers to the plot and political intrigue in a world where the mer people didn't believe in humans, until faced with them. My one issue is the idea of mer people with legs. I've never quite swallowed that concept although it's come up in various films where it was convenient. It just doesn't ring true, keeping in mind that I'm prepared to believe in mermaids and mermen for story purposes.

The undersea city was an interesting concept in itself, but I didn't get as much feeling of merpeople in this story as I'd hoped, despite the transformations. It could as easily have been a story of post-Atlantis or some other undiscovered undersea civilisation.

The writing itself was good and I enjoyed the story for the most part, though I couldn't always visualise the action when it got towards the climax. I didn't like the ending. I can't say too much without giving away spoilers but although Milo's insights and character development were interesting in themselves, too many convenient actions to avoid conflicts of interest and just a stretch of believability left me feeling unsatisfied.

This book just didn’t quite do it for me. There were elements to it that I enjoyed - wandering through Rasulka was fun and interesting - but all in all, I felt like this was two different books that never quite came together. It was both a fantasy novel about mermaids and a story of psychology and what it means to be human, but I was never convinced that these two ideas were part of the same world.

The relationships between the characters felt hollow to me. I did not see much to make me think Milo and Laura’s relationship was going anywhere or would last even after the book ended. I honestly forgot pretty quickly that Milo was writing this story down in a journal from some kind of mental facility, so when that came back around, I didn’t feel like it actually tied anything together. I wanted to feel some kind of admiration of the fantastic with this book, but instead I felt like half the book might as well not have happened for all the effect it seemed to have on the outcome and the world.

I felt like there were a few half finished ideas that never really came to fruition. Everything in the mermaid city felt like it had so much more to offer and could be expanded into a really interesting book. We just were not there long enough to really come to care about any of the characters or the mermaids in general. Killer whales appeared more than once in this book, but never really seemed to follow through with any deeper meaning. Also, some of the characters never seemed to be more than side characters, even when they were present throughout much of the book.

This is a book that I think has an interesting premise, but just does not deliver for me.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I again really love mermaid books and you add scifi to this then you have a real winner. Overall I really enjoyed this book, the plot was great, as was the characters. I hope there's more in this world as i'll read it.

This is a fantasy tale about mermen and the man that discovered them. It's a dark story with a brightening discovery at end.

CS Johnson writes a story that begins with all the vestiges of every day reality and then slips into an otherworldly story of mermaids and science fiction elements. I enjoyed the writing, and particularly the characterization, Johnson employed in this solid story.

I thought this book sounded interesting but it just didn’t hit the mark for me. The concept was cool but the writing style didn’t execute it for me.