"Given to the Sea" by Mindy McGinnis

Earlier this year I read and loved Mindy McGinnis' YA contemporary called The Female of the Species. So I was very happy to see that she came out with a new fantasy novel Given to the Sea. Unfortunately, this newest book by the author did not live up to my expectations.

The premise of the book revolves around a nation called Stille located by the sea. A long time ago a large wave swept away most of the city. The Stillean lore has it that the sea was appeased when three young women gave their lives to the sea (i.e. drowned). The main character Khosa is destined to be given to the sea, just like her mother before her, and countless generations of females prior to that.

The world-building is quite confusing and vague in this novel. We seem to have four distinct nations: Stille, Pietra, Feenen and Indiri. Pietra are by far the most brutal. They obliterated the Indiri to the point that only two children survived (and were raised by the queen of Stille). They also put their elderly and sick into boats and send them off to be eaten by sea monsters. The Stilleans as I already mentioned appease the sea by drowning a young girl (but not before she gives birth to a baby girl who is to be the next Given). Feenen are the outcasts, the rejects of both Pietra and Stille, and most of them have physical deformities, mental disorders, or some other ailments. Finally, the Indiri are fearless warriors who also possess some sort of magic. They also appear to look different from the other races (they are described as having spots on their skin).

A lot of the story line appears to revolve around the sea, however, this is also the part that is the most confusing. First of all, the three nations (let's ignore the Indiri since there are only two left and they live in Stille), live close to the sea. Yet, none of their people can swim. They all seem to be afraid of the sea for different reasons. The Stilleans fear the wave whereas the Pietra seem to be dealing with sea monsters. Yet, all of them are located relatively close to each other since the Pietra pretty much walk to Stille.

There were also various plot lines that were simply dropped and never picked up. For example, the two Indiris find a sea monster roaming the woods. Everyone agrees that this is odd and should be further investigated. Yet, we literally never come back to this and do not learn anything more about this oddity. All the cultures/nations in the book seem to be very comfortable with casual sex. Servants engage in dalliances freely, and even parents are not above arranging for their daughters to bed men from noble families. Yet, the queen is "hurt" by infidelities of her husband, and Vincent is rejected by Dara because she wants more from him than a physical relationship. This just seems illogical and inconsistent to me. What is this double standard where against the backdrop of general loose behavior in society, the few main characters exhibit high moral principles that are so uncharacteristic of their culture? And what is backing those morals up?

I really struggled with this book. Apart from the weak world building, I did not feel attached to any of the characters. Moreover, the plot itself did not seem to have any direction that I could see. At several points the narrative seemed to be building up to something, but then disappointingly, nothing happened. There were so many loose ends at the close of the novel that I was not surprised to discover that this is book 1 in a duet.... I am not sure I will be reading book 2. I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars originally, but now that I had time to think about it a bit more, I think I will downgrade it to 2 out of 5. A very disappointing read.