Ice Massacre (Book)

I probably just broke my reading speed record and finished a book in only three days. The book in question was Ice Massacre by Tiana Warner. It was this month's pick for a read-a-long in the Books and Tea Discord, and since a friend of mine was kind enough to buy the book for me of course I had to read it!

A mermaid’s supernatural beauty serves one purpose: to lure a sailor to his death.

The Massacre is supposed to bring peace to Eriana Kwai. Every year, the island sends its warriors to battle these hostile sea demons. Every year, the warriors fail to return. Desperate for survival, the island must decide on a new strategy. Now, the fate of Eriana Kwai lies in the hands of twenty battle-trained girls and their resistance to a mermaid’s allure.
Eighteen-year-old Meela has already lost her brother to the Massacre, and she has lived with a secret that’s haunted her since childhood. For any hope of survival, she must overcome the demons of her past and become a ruthless mermaid killer.

For the first time, Eriana Kwai’s Massacre warriors are female, and Meela must fight for her people’s freedom on the Pacific Ocean’s deadliest battleground.

I didn't really have any idea what I was getting into except for the fact that the book was supposed to have a lesbian romance between a human and a mermaid. Turns out that side of the story developed very slowly and we only got to see little moments of Meela and Lysi together as kids and then the brief moments on the ship. Meela hadn't even figured out she liked girls yet, let alone her mermaid friend, but that didn't bother me because there was so much other stuff going on I don't know how anyone had time to fall in love with anyone. It just felt realistic to me.

My experience with mermaid related fiction is pretty much limited to Disney's The Little Mermaid movies etc. so mermaids portrayed as something really scary instead of just pretty girls was interesting. Even young Lysi made it very clear that they are some dangerous creatures if they want to be. The idea of being stuck on a ship with Ice Massacre mermaids with they red eyes and sharp teeth attacking left and right is pretty terrifying (to be honest being stuck on a ship in the middle of nowhere in general sounds super scary to me). It sounds a little strange that Eriana Kwai only sends twenty warriors a year to fight them but I guess they would run out of people really fast otherwise.

Which brings us to our warrior ladies. Because warrior ladies are great. Even though there were so many girls on the crew it was pretty easy to keep track of who was who. They were all strong personalities in one way or another and it wasn't surprising that being alone with that group eventually caused a lot of conflict, especially thanks to Dani. Oh Dani. That girl did not have all the moomins in the valley. I kept wanting to yell at her how stupid it was to cause the group to divide like it did and I did complain about it loudly to my fiancé on multiple occasions while reading. The Massacre sounds like a suicide mission to begin with, people don't need to help make that happen.

All in all I liked this book a lot and I'm still surprised how fast I read it considering it's almost 400 pages long. Usually any book takes me at least a month because I only read a couple of chapters before bed, but this one had me stuck on the couch for hours at a time. I might even get the sequel one day when I feel less bad about the amount of unread books I have gathering dust in my shelf.