Just for Fins

This is the third installment in Ms Childs' Fins series which is not to be confused with Ashley Knight's Fins Trilogy. In case you're late to the party, here's a quick sketch of what happened in book 1 -Forgive My Fins- and book 2 - Fins Are Forever:Lilly is an 18 year-old mermaid living on land and attending high school. Her full name is Princess Waterlily of Thalassinia and she was sent by her father, King Whelk, to live with her human aunt for a year and attend school in order to get an idea of how humans live. Terribly homesick, she's about to hit the Bimini Road for Thalassinia when she gets a glimpse of this human boy and becomes fixated on him. Her crush is so bad that she begs her father to let her complete high school so she can be near this boy who barely knows that she exists. Here ultimate goal is to kiss the guy a month or so before graduation and drag him home to meet Daddy. Ms Childs' vision of mer-life is not unlike that of Brenda Pandos in her wonderful Mer Tales series. All it takes is one kiss from the mer-person of your dreams and you're on your way to growing fins. There is no telling how the crush might feel about this. After all, Lilly is just a bit of background noise to him.Well, as luck would have it, Lilly kisses the wrong guy; The boy next door - Quince - who has been trying to get Lilly's attention via the time-honoured method of being annoying. Once this happens, Lilly's plan is complicated by her need to de-bond with the boy next door whom she later discovers - much to her chagrin - that she really loves. The Thalassinian royal house is goverened by a set of obscure and arcane laws that seem to complicate her life at every turn and she has to do a bit of mer jigery-pokery in order to keep her position as Princess and keep the guy that she really loves.The whole story arc takes place in the weeks and month before graduation. This installment takes Princess Waterlilly up to and through graduation. In the meantime, she has to:Try & secure aid for a neighbouring kingdom suffering from the effects of global warmingDeal with mer-sabotage of human oceanic endeavours in order to force them out of the waterAvert a war between neighbouring kingdomsThrow cold water on a plan to attract human attention so that they may - hopefully - get the people on the surface to stop polluting the oceansDeal with being bitten by yet another arcane law. In this case, it's Quince, the boy next door, who does most of the suffering.The usual cast of characters - both above and below the waterline - appear in Just For Fins. We are also reintroduced to Astria, Venus and Piper, a Greek chorus of young mermaids that reminds one of the three "popular girls" in the GEICO commercial.[tube][...]There is a good bit of character maturation in this installment as Lilly's annoying younger cousin takes on a more rational and grown-up attitude. In other words, she starts to care about something other than herself. Amazingly, so do the girls in the afore-mentioned Greek chorus. Lilly's human boyfriend, Quince, demonstrates that he will take on almost any test in order to keep her.The end result of all this is a very funny and sweet story. Young adult females - at least those into aquatic fantasy - will love Just For Fins. So will adults. As usual, Ms Childs does a wonderful job of telling her story with a mixture of humour, love, and - of course - drama. It is a joy to read a book with no dropped, misspelt or misused words. In fact there is only one place where this reviewer feels that the story falls short.In the story, Lilly decides to forgo college because there are no courses that will help her as the future ruler of Thalassinia. Her human boyfriend has a construction job lined up after high school so he won't need college either.Don't need college? Really?? While it is true that courses on mer-politics are usually not on the curriculum of most human institutions of higher learning, there are things like behavioural science, sociology, administration, international relations, etc. and etc. where the general principles could be applied to her unique situation. As for Lilly's human boyfriend, will he want to be a construction worker for the rest of his days? Probably not. He may want to form his own construction company or focus on some of the more technical aspects of construction. In that case, some college courses would help him enormously.Yes, Lilly and her boyfriend are just characters in a story but Ms Childs does her target audience a disservice by implying that education can be a waste in some particular situations. Education is never a waste and I would have hoped that Ms Childs would have included a subtle message to that effect in Just For Fins. It would have been much better for Lilly to say that she & her boyfriend had decided to take a gap year or two in order to get their feet on the ground before pursuing further education - whether general studies, technical or whatever.Just For Fins appears to be the end of this particular story arc. Ms Childs does not, however, close her story with a sense of finality and there is the possibility that a new story line could begin by focusing on Quince's adjustment to life with Lilly or their making a home both above and below the ocean waves. Throw in those community college courses that they're going to need - whether Lilly believes it or not - and yet another arcane Thalassinian law to run afoul of and Ms Childs has the fodder for at least one more novel with perhaps a bit older target audience.Whatever Ms Childs decides to do, these three novels are a wonderful adventure. If the series continues or not, this reviewer finds himself hoping that somehow, somewhere, there is a mermaid named Lilly.

I am convinced those people who claim to only read intellectual, stuffy books, magazines, and newspapers secretly have a stash of fun, easy reading hidden under their beds. Why fight the fact that sometimes, a funny, easy, entertaining, endearing read is all you really want? And with Tera Lynn Childs, you are bound to get just that with Just for Fins.Lily may be a mermaid queen, but that doesn't mean everyone takes her seriously. In her mermaid kingdom, she tries to use her position to call the other mermaid kings and queens to join forces to help Tellin's kingdom (her "husband" or bond mate, in name only). Tellin's kingdom is on the verge of starvation due to pollution and over-fishing, but that doesn't mean anyone wants to help them. The other leaders scold Lily for not recognizing their own human-caused problems and promptly depart from the meeting, leaving Lily to look like a fool.But Tellin's dying kingdom isn't Lily's only concern. An ancient law is dug up that states Quince, Lily's true love, must pass three trials in order for them to remain together. If he fails, she will be banished to the water, he will be banished to land, and neither can come together ever again. Now Lily finds everything she ever loved on the line with little hope of fixing things. But it is about to get worse when the merpeople consider acts of sabotage on oil rigs and ships perfectly acceptable revenge to save the oceans humans have so carelessly destroyed. As a half-human who is in love with a human, Lily can't imagine the losses and devastation such acts could cause. But how can one teenage mermaid stop generations of oceanic destruction all by herself?I just love Tera Lynn Childs. She never disappoints. Her stories are witty, fun, and just make me smile. This was a good conclusion to the mermaid tales (pun intended), but I wish the trials for Quince weren't so rushed. With the focus on the environmental issues, the trials we stuffed into a few short pages them forgotten about for a long stretch. It seems like it could either have been more developed or left out altogether instead of making a big deal out of it then ignoring it. Still, the environmental issues were a great, serious element to these fun stories, and whole-heartedly appropriate for a modern day story of the sea.These are fairly young books and would be best for middle readers or an immature young adult reader. Although, if you can get a stronger young adult reader to pick them up, they would most likely enjoy the entertaining stories. They do have a great joy to them, and I know I have enjoyed every book I read by Childs!

Lily Sanderson is officially now the crown princess of Thalasinia. With lots of love from her human boyfriend Quince, and help from her estranged cousin Dosinia, Princess Waterlily has support to face her latest challenge: Convincing the mermaid kings and queens to give help to a dying kingdom.But not everything goes as planned and Lily has to take a step back and look at the problems in a bigger scope, all while freaking out over Quince having to undergo yet another test to prove his worthiness.Just For Fins was a great third installment in this mermaid series and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I whipped through it in three hours. The pacing moves along nicely and the characters have really developed, especially Doe, in ways that keep you rooting for them and wanting to read more. I actually give this book a rating of 4.5 stars rather than just four. Childs has a way of weaving such a unique world into your imagination that you can't help but just dive into the nearest ocean and search for a mer kingdom.I do however, wish there was more alone time with Lily and Quince, and some more pages! At only just under 300 pages I feel that much more could have been added and given more detail to.Other than a few minor issues of just wanting more, Just For Fins was a captivating tail that any good guppy would slip their flippers on to.

I prefer paperbacks so this fit well with my collection of books, terra Lynn has great books in general so I was pleased with my purchase

Another great read from Tera, I really enjoyed this series, and I can't wait to read more of Tera's books.

Il libro è arrivato in ottime condizioni, e soddisfa tutti i requisiti e le informazioni date dal venditore!! L a consegna non è stata per niente lunga, anzi il venditore è stato davvero molto corretto arrivando a scusarsi via mail per il fatto che il pacco è arrivato con 5 giorni di ritardo!! E' la prima volta che questo mi capita dunque grandi complimenti a tutti!!!!

I have always been into mermaids,fairys, vampires, anything mythical and reading this book made like mermaids more I truly recommend this book to anyone