This was a highly anticipated release for me, that sadly did not hit the mark. This book had such great potential, with such a fascinating concept, but unfortunately it just fell flat. The worldbuilding was really lacking I felt, but not so much as the characters - we have quite a number of POVs in here, with three main characters, and they all just felt like the exact same personality. There was also just SO much going on in such a short space of time that I never felt fully invested in any storyline or character, because we were jumping from one thing to the next. This was truly one of the few books I've considered DNFing in my life, because I just did not care about the story at all. Such a shame given the stunning cover, and the amazing potential that this had.

In the submerged city of Tiankawi, humans and fathomofolk coexist, yet tensions simmer beneath the surface, palpable through the varied roles and interactions of the characters. The narrative hints at a political undercurrent, weaving in themes of racism and inequality, mirroring the complexities of our world.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for my copy of this arc!

I really wanted to love this book but I had no desire to pick it up and felt it slightly confusing to follow the 3rd person narration as some characters weren’t explained as well as others.

I couldn’t finish this book all the way through as every time I picked it up I felt as though it was making me not want to read and I had little interest in it.

DNF at 16%

Thank you Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book

Honestly, I just couldn't get into this. It took me three reads to get to 16% and I had no desire to continue. I'm sure it's probably a great book once you get into it but it just wasn't for me. The premise sounds interesting and the writing was fine, it just lacked a level of enchantment that I'd hope for with and story filled sirens, water dragons and kelpies. Not one for me.

Fathomfolk introduces interesting characters in a very interesting world. The world’s waters are rising, the water is polluted and its habitats dying. Fathomfolk (those who live in the water) need to flee their homes and take refuge wherever they can. Around the world are different human cities in which folk can live as well. One of these cities is Tiankawi which is built in different floors. There’s the ocean, vast and deep but also with shallower regions, then there are the poorer humans and richer folk. The higher the buildings get, the richer and more influential are their inhabitants.

The world building was one of the things I liked most about Fathomfolk. It’s detailed and interesting, giving the reader a glimpse of an apocalyptic yet fascinating world that plays a bit with climate change and rising waters. There are the different Havens all around the oceans which are all endangered. Then there are the human cities that still remain. It’s a very interesting mix of magic, mythology, technology and politics.

The societies are made up of humans and folk from all over the world; selkies, kelpies, sirens, sea witches, water dragons, kappas,… basically any water being you could think of. This constellations makes for many conflicts which I thought were well thought through. I especially enjoyed how the social conflicts were written:
1. Racial conflicts. Most of the fathomfolk in Tiankawi are poor and belong to lower classes. They live in the polluted waters at the very bottom of the city or in floating houses or boats on the surface. While there are lower class humans as well, they still have better living conditions than most of the folk. There is constant tension between humans and folk for that reason.
2. Refugees. Many of the folk have been living in Tiankawi for quite a while but due to havens in the sea dying, more and more refugees try to enter the city – legally or illegally doesn’t matter anymore. But space in Tiankawi has its limits, especially when those who have space don’t want to give any away.

I really liked how those two conflicts were written and underlying the whole story. Each of the protagonists was involved somehow so there were many POVs to the conflicts, highlighting personal but also common interests, wishes, and problems.

My favourite protagonist was Mira, a half human half siren who works in the border guard and is the only fathomfolk captain there. She gets called quota folk. She has carved a place for herself in this harsh city and now she needs to stay there. But she struggles a lot with it and with the pressure from both the folk and the humans. She tries very hard to do the right things but she gets constantly stopped. I could understand her very well, both her anger and her resignation, as well as her love for her city and how she keeps going despite all the obstacles in her way. I also enjoyed that she is also in an established relationship already, one where she can find safety and support. Her boyfriend is the ambassador for one of the Havens, a water dragon named Kai and let me tell you. I loved him. He was by far my favourite character in the book. He’s an absolute sweetheart, thoughtful and yet determined to help in any way he can. He still needs to learn a lot and I liked how he was easily able to learn and adapt.

Kai’s sister, Nami, is new to Tiankawi. She arrives there after undergoing some hardships which don’t present the city and its inhabitants in a good light. It was easy to follow her thoughts. She’s still very young and hasn’t seen much of the world and is thus naive, but also full of will and energy and determination. Through her, we get to see how people get convinced to join an extremist group, how their dynamics work and what they use to gain more followers. I struggled a bit with Nami’s chapters and wanted to shake some sense into her from time to time but I could also understand well why she did what she did.

The fourth POV is from Cornelia, the sea witch’s. I didn’t really like her as a character but I loved how she was written! She’s a very interesting character, always scheming and moving for opportunities for a better standing in society as well as some kind of safety.

I really enjoyed all characters and how each gives soemthing new to the story that made understanding easier but that also made me nod in agreement. I liked how each character was interwoven with both external and internal conflicts.

I absolutely loved this book right up until the ending. I don’t want to spoil it but I really hope the next installment is going to broach the social issues from Fathomfolk. The ending seemed to solve most of the struggles the previous story built up way too easily. It didn’t fit what I read previously and was highly anticlimatic. I truly adored Fathomfolk, but after the ending it still left unsatisfied and left a sour taste in my mouth. After what the story up to that point built up was basically made null and void with the ending. I really do hope this gets resolved!

But all in all, I liked Fathomfolk a lot!

Found this hard to get into - only got invested maybe 40% in? There were a lot of povs, that were useful, buuut couldve been eased in. Idk. It was good, just had to push through!

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley and Orbit UK for providing me with an ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Fathomfolk is Eliza Chan’s debut fantasy novel in which we follow Nami and Mira as they try to fight for fathomfolk rights and decide if the change is worth it or if they should let Tiankawi, their semi-flooded city, drown.

When reading reviews on GoodReads, I was under the impression that this book was either a hit or a miss, and it was definitely a hit for me. The worldbuilding was really complex and kind of hard to remember as there are a lot of intricacies, and I wish there was a glossary of some sort to help with that, but it was also really cool and unique. You can clearly tell that Fathomfolk is inspired by East-Asian mythology and folklore and that was the main reason why I wanted to read this book, so I was not disappointed by that.
I had some trouble diving into the story as it was not what I expected at all, especially character-wise, but the plot is really interesting and tackles some themes that are both important in our world and in the book’s world, like discrimination and environmental rights. Some plot twists felt predictable and some not, but overall, I really enjoyed reading this story. As for the characters… I felt kind of misled by the synopsis because I thought that Mira was going to be the main character, but it turns out that Nami is the main character, and Cordelia was not at all taken into account in that synopsis (there is now a new synopsis). Nevertheless, I liked the characters and Nami is definitely my favourite.
I will definitely read book 2 of this series!

I recommend this book to you if you enjoy East-Asian adult fantasy, political games, betrayals and seafolks!

I will admit I struggled to get into this book, I'm normally okay with various POV stories, but with Fathomfolk I found it a major struggle to get into the various switches between character's voices. I liked the overall setting of the book as it was an intriguing premise but I do feel like the rapid switching in chapters between POVs made the book feel more choppy than it should have and it did mean at times it was a struggle especially as the pace picked up to the end of the novel. I do feel like the target audience should have been more young adult than any other demographic as it reminded me a lot of the kind of books I enjoyed reading as a teen in terms of romance plot...

Thank you Netgalley and Little Brown for the e-ARC.

I wish I could have loved this book as much as I wanted to. Unfortunately, I have to say that listening to the audiobook was the only way for me to get through all of it, because the story never really gripped me.

The descriptions were beautiful and the writing was not really at fault, because it was overall brilliant plotting, but this was much too political for my taste.

I only really cared for Mira and did not really connect with other characters, and even found Nami really annoying most of the time. The voices that the narrator did also made a few characters sound really stupid, so that might have played a part in my opinion.

I got rather invested around the 78% mark, and was excited for the ending, which was really great, although I was very disappointed in a specific death. It’s just such a shame that it took getting tothe epilogue for this book to have me hooked, because I loved it, but I’m not sure I could read a second book if it was as political as this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I really liked the world-building of this novel and the concept of both underwater and land-dwelling communities living together (even if not quite in harmony!). The fathomfolk are an interesting creation and something different for fantasy writing. However, I felt the narrative dragged at times, particularly during the Nami storyline. The ending was intriguing though. 3.5 stars really.

I really liked the sound of this but I did feel quite thrown into the world with little context and too many characters introduced all at once.

Fathomfolk has a really pretty cover and an interesting premise. Unfortunately it could not convince me.

In recent years I have read other books with the theme of surpression of a species or other kinds of people and I have to say that I found that those books worked better at making me feel it. Partially this had to do with the characters but also partially with the writing. M.L. Wangs Blood Over Bright Haven sprung to mind often as I read this book wherein I didn't care for most characters, but her writing and set-up delivered exactly what she set out to do. Fathomfolk does not.

Returning back to the characters, they are slightly on the flat side. I liked Mila but she doesn't really move forward. She is very passive in her situation and it didn't make for a very compelling read. Nami on the other hand was immature. It was so very obvious that she was being used. There was absolutely no sublety about it and it was frustrating to see that she didn't want to see it.

The world in itself is interesting. Water species that can have a human body when on the land and that makes the human and the other species clash. But there is very little description of the various water species. I have an idea of what most of them are, but the whole point of books is that you show and describe them to me. I also wondered a lot about the relationships between the various species. There are some hints here and there but mostly it was the humans versus the fathomfolk. I think that was a missed opportunity. The brief glimpses of the under water life that we got, most of them seemed to be in their human bodies or living life like how they would on land. It felt a little weird and like this aspect wasn't giving a whole lot of thought.

Zootopia but make it water-themed, is how I would pitch the book. We follow a cop character trying to improve the lives of their marginalised society in a sprawling metropolitan city - don't that sound familiar.

I was very surprised to learn this book is adult - the whole time reading I assumed it was a YA and I think it would've worked better and set more accurate expectations if that was the book's categorisation. The whole thing felt a bit more juvenile in its approach to talking about racism, stigmatisation, prejudice etc. Not a bad thing as young people need to examine these concepts but for an adult book, I would expect a more nuanced, deeper examination.

I think having a human character could've benefited the book, as we see Nami's perspective change throughout the book and at some point she says not all humans are bad. I'm not sure why she thinks so as all the humans she and us meet are indeed scum. I think adding a human POV would've added depth and another dimension to the conversation. I think that's what they were trying to do with Mira but she faces a lot of prejudice and no one treats her as if she's human, so it didn't quite deliver.

Overall, a lot was going on and I'm not sure that all the plot points delivered their point. I did like a lot of it - talking about prejudice, toxic relationships, interracial relationships, revolutions and change through violence. I just feel like the execution of them was a bit surface-level which is why it felt more YA.

The world is for sure interesting and as someone who enjoys books about mermaids/sirens it was cool to see so many different water creatures and learn more about them. I needed a little bit more about the magic system and the world though to truly understand it.

I think the climax of the book was the best part, it was quite tense and action-packed. I am not sure if the 'solution' to racism really examines the problem deeply, as to me it's a little bit of a cop-out.

I won't likely pick up the sequel but I'm not mad I read this. Just a bit meh about it is all.

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown Book Group UK for the advance reader copy.

This was an anticipated read for me and it fell flat.
There’s a lot of characters partially introduced early into the story and yet it feels like not a lot happens for a good portion of the book.

The general writing style didn’t appeal to me and I found this hard to get through and eventually finish.

Loved loved it
It was a tiny bit of confusing at the begging but once you get into the story was amazing
Loved the different pov as well

Fathomfolk
Fantasy
Eliza Chan
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

• ᴘᴏʟɪᴛɪᴄꜱ • ᴄᴏɴꜰʟɪᴄᴛꜱ • ᴍʏᴛʜᴏʟᴏɢʏ •

I have mixed feelings about this book. The world building was very detailed and sometimes it felt too complicated. While I really liked the idea of the mythological creatures, I think too many were crammed in.

I usually like multiple POVs but I found them a little confusing in this book because they seemed to switch too quickly and sometimes it would happen in the middle of a chapter.

The pacing was slow to begin with, partly due to so much world building but it did pick up.

Certain things were predictable but I did like the plot, for the most part. Eliza Chan has included some very interesting topics.

I liked the characters, some more than others though.

The ending was ok. I liked some parts of it but I also found it a little disappointing.

*Thank you to @Netgalley, the author, and the publishers for providing this ARC. This is my own opinion and an honest review, which I am leaving voluntarily*

I tried to read this five times and each time bounced off it in disappointment. I don't know what it was, but the opening chapters just totally failed to hook me in. Perhaps it's a mood read and I wasn't in the mood for it, or it might have been that I don't have enough brain space for this. Certainly there are wonderful mythology imagery and social inequality considerations visible from the opening chapters, and I think in a different timescale I would love this, but it's just not right for me right now.

One may think that given that many Asian folklore have similar or the same origins you can mix them up without much context or explanation, throwing names of different mythologies creatures at random and with no balance or any measure of integration. The result is that the reader, especially when they’re unfamiliar with many of said folklores, is confused, lost and perhaps struggling to follow. Add to that uninteresting characters and there you have it, a “did not finished/wasn’t invested enough” book in the making.

I have read books that mixed folklores that had concrete figures and legends in common, and they worked for me because they used that commonality as the base to build the story. But this was not the case, the only thing the creatures from “Fathomfolk” other than their “otherness” is that they were water creatures. But that’s not good enough, all cultures can speak of water creatures in their folklores when water is such an important element for the survival of all living being. The worlbuilding her lacked support and interest. And then starting the book throwing info without much depth only made things worse. I was feeling so confused that I had to look for someone to explain at least the basics to me. I didn’t succeed. I felt like I was thrown into the water without learning to swim first.

I don’t want to put Eliza Chan’s writing skills into question, her writing was very good. The world building was not. I think she lacked advice, someone outside her circle, to tell her to simplify things and to not take things for granted, especially when it comes to the readers’ knowledge of all of the cultures in East Asia. It’s easy to find people familiar with Chinese culture, Japanese culture, Korean culture, Vietnamese culture… and so on. But all of them at once? It seems very unlikely, especially amongst young adult, who seem to be the target for this book. I was very excited to get this book approved on Netgalley, and I don’t think I am allowed to say I’m disappointed, it is my fault for getting my hopes high.

In Tiankawi, the semi-submerged city, humans look down literally from their skyscrapers on the fathomfolk — sirens, seawitches, kelpies, and the whatnot — who live in the polluted waters below. Mira, a half-siren, has been appointed captain of the border guards and wishes to fix things. Then Nami, a water dragon with a connection to Mira gets exiled to the city. Impatient for change, Nami gets involved with an anti-human extremist group. When the annual boat races are sabotaged the fathomfolk are named suspect, lighting a fuse in the powderkeg of human-fathomfolk relations. The fathomfolks' rights are then diminished. Can Tiankawi be saved?

Visiting this world was a delight, absorbing the straight-to-the-point but still friendly narrative like a sponge. Full of rich, descriptive paragraphs, ideal for those who like a lot of detailing in the worldbuilding and the characters' thoughts. Imaginative, gifting us with such wonderful images, the storytelling is imbued with bittersweet pensiveness. There is plotting and different agendas, political intrigue and rebellious inclinations.

The POVs are introspective and of strong, independent female figures, one of them a master manipulator. There is an unexpected one, Serena, who has a secret we do not know yet even though I kind of guessed the truth early on, before the reveal. The character development is grounded, realistic. No person is just one thing.

Wish some of the creatures and the inner workings of this world (not so much the politics) were explained more and there was less emphasis on the often longwinded musings of the characters. Sometimes I need simpler. I admit it took me a bit to really get into the story and the second half of the book is much better, fulfilling the promise of the great premise.

final rating: 3.5/5☆

thanks to netgalley and the publisher Little Brown Books for the e-arc!

this has been on the tbr for awhile. first, pretty cover. second, asian fantasy set in a half submerged world?? i would eat this up and i did, and while the world building was vivid and (most of) the characters were lovable, i felt myself greatly let down by the pacing and perhaps the overall style/writing of this one.

(spoilers ahead)

we have a focus on three different characters — Mira, half siren captain of the chinthe border guards; Nami (very apt name for this story which unfortunately felt a bit too much), radical sister of Mira's boyfriend: Serena, a politician's meek wife and seawitch in disguise.

i'll get it out of the way. Nami annoys me. very very much. the way her character is handled felt a little immature, especially with her arc from a total radical to slowly understanding humans in Tiankawi. she was easily influenced by everyone, susceptible to betrayal from everyone and doesn't really seem to learn from experience. a lot of missed opportunities for her growth to be more gradual, but her lessons felt too sudden near the end and unearned.

i liked Mira and Serena, though. Mira is portrayed as an independent fathomfolk half siren who clawed her way from poverty to her position today, and i liked seeing how she is already there, supposedly 'at the end of her journey' but still possesses much character depth in the way she is not one dimensional and has only remains streafast to the folk. she's both, born in freshwater and owns it. love how intraracial prejudices were written into her, with the discrimination against sirens.

i thought her boyfriend was going to fade into the background and eventually break up with her due to differing political beliefs, so i was surprised that he stuck around even after she pushed him away and gave his voice in exchange for her mother. her learning to sign for him??? brilliant. seeing his sacrifice that saved everyone and might have solved some issues of disparity made me nearly cry on public transport.

very excited to see what comes next, what Mira owes Cordelia, what is going to happen with the titan's other half and the world changed.

(cross posted on goodreads)