The Brighton Mermaid Book Review

Book: The Brighton Mermaid 
Author: Dorothy Koomson 
Pages: 490
Start Reading Date: 1st July 2018
End Reading Date: 7th July 2018
Good reads Rating: 5*

The Brighton Mermaid is about Nell, a woman who as a teenager found a murdered woman on Brighton Beach along with her best friend Jude. Whom herself went missing a few weeks later.

The police believed that Nell’s father had been responsible, and he’d been arrested by the racist police officer in charge countless of times, even when more bodies were found on other beaches.

25 years later, Nell leaves her job for a year to discover who the Brighton Mermaid is, and what happened to her best friend.

I am not someone who loves short chapters. I think it has to work really well, and that the book is not a YA book and all that comes with a typical YA book. But with the Brighton Mermaid it works so well. The choppiness of it, going back and forth through the years, it works so well.  


It would have been so easy for Dorothy Koomson to complicate the whole story with adding in all of the Mermaid Murders, but I’m glad that she didn’t because Jude’s disappearance was related to just the Brighton Mermaid case. Ok so I am re reading this post before I post it, and add anything that I feel is needed, like I said, it would have been so easy to complicate the whole story adding the other murders into it, but I’m glad that even those murders were covered in the later/current days but not as much as the Brighton Mermaid Murder. 

With about 100 pages left omg omg omg. The twist and turns in the book is literally making my jaw drop. I kind of knew that there would be something that would make the book super interesting but what’s happening never crossed my mind.  

Nell is a massive part of the book for obvious reasons, but so is her sister Macy, who is a very anxious person, and wants to tell Nell something. Did she already know what Nell found out late in the book? When it came out what Macy knew, it was a shock but not something that I’d ever imagine she’d seen what she saw. Or what happened happened. 


I can never say what Dorothy Koomson book is my favorite because of how brilliant and different they are. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a curse. 

The Brighton Mermaid is another example of that.  

I never want Dorothy’s books to end. If she wrote a book with a million pages in it I’d still love it.  

I am not a massive fan of suspense books but with The Brighton Mermaid I didn’t want it to end.  

With the Brighton Mermaid, you want to like all the characters, there are some that you won’t like, but some your opinion changes about. And I liked who it was because you had no idea about who it is, literally when I found out about a particular charter had done something my mouth dropped open. 

Every DK book that I’ve read I’ve always wanted another book to follow it up. And The Brighton Mermaid is no different. 

I am forever grateful for Dorothy Koomson.  

The Best Of Me Book Review

Book: The Best Of Me
Author: Nicholas Sparks 
Pages: 292
Publish Date: October 11th 2011
Start Reading Date: July 7th 2018
End Reading Date: July 18th 2018
Good reads Rating: 2*

I had no idea what to expect from the book other than a romance set in North Carolina USA 🇺🇸 

I am glad I had a break between reading another Nicholas Sparks book. 

Amanda and Dawson are teenage sweethearts, who are from completely different backgrounds. Amanda’s family want what’s best for her where as Dawson’s family are criminals. Amanda and Dawson are reunited 20 years later when a friend from their teen years passed away.  

A whole life time has passed, when they’re reunited, and while their relationship/reunion is cute it’s one that is a bit boring.  

As individuals I like them. I like how Dawson is and isn’t like his family. You can take him away from the mayhem of his family but still he has the family name. I find that he was a better person away from the small town and dare say it Amanda.  

Amanda I find was really dull. I wished that she could be more honest with how she is feeling, towards Dawson, her husband, her mother and most of all her own feeling. I did feel bad when her son was critically ill.  

The bit that got me the most (and brought the book up in my opinion) is Tuck’s letter. Tuck is the man who Dawson and Amanda were reunited because of. When Dawson left his family home as a teenager he ran away and lived in Tuck’s shed and helped with some car repairs. 


I think it’s a cute book, but honestly it’s not really that great. 


Best of me was a book I got back on my birthday this year (March 29th 2018) and the original price was $28 (Canadian) and it was half price at the goodwill store so I only paid $2 for it (normal pricing at the store is between $1.50 and $5) 

Favorite Endings

Welcome to my post all about my favourite book endings. 

If a book ending is really good it makes me want to know what happened to the characters later.  

- 19 Years Later
    - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 
    - JK Rowling 

I know a lot of people don’t like the ending of Harry Potter but I really liked it. For me it was the perfect ending. I cried through out the whole book. Even the book was a brilliant ending to the series. 

- The Reveal
    - The Ice Cream Girls 
    - Dorothy Koomson 
Ok ok so the chapter isn’t called The Reveal but when you find out who the killer is then it’s obvious why I call it that.  
It’s a perfect ending to the book that’s already hard hitting and perfect. 

- Graduation 
    - Hate List
    - Jennifer Brown
Because of of what happened to that particular grade the year before they graduated they could have easily had a bad experience graduating, but while their senior year was full of trials and tribulations they made the best of it. They could have not included Nick in their remembrance box but they did. 

- Café
    - My Best Friends Girl
    - Dorothy Koomson 
Like I said with The Ice Cream Girls, My Best Friends Girl is another book that I never wanted to end and I hope that we get a follow up of the book. Maybe if Tegan is a teenager at high school. Anyway. Back on track. The end where Tegan is officially adopted by Ryn and they are in the cafe and she sees Luke is heartwarming. 

- Saying Goodbye
    - Lock and Key
    - Sarah Dessen
Ok so again it’s not called saying goodbye but that’s what I’m calling it. I liked how throughout the book you hoped that Ruby would get together with the boy next door Nate. It shows that love can come in the forms so different than romantic ones. I liked how this YA Contemporary book didn’t have a full blown relationship between Ruby and Nate

- The Last Two Chapters 
    - The Brighton Mermaid 
When you find out what happened the day that Nell and Jude discovered what happened to the Brighton Mermaid and Jude’s disappearance.  

- Paris
    - The Devil Wears Prada 
I love the ending of The Devil Wears Prada because Andrea finally found who she was again after so long. She lost a massive piece of who she was (though I did like her when she was all involved in the fashion world) but when it clicked for her that it’s not who she is she grew as a person, and became a better version of her previous self. One that was more likeable. 

Books I Struggled To Finish..... But Did

I’ll aways struggle reading, if a book is good I can normally get through the struggle.  

- The Help

There is no doubt in my mind that The Help is a great book, but it took me a while to actually completely read the book. Three times in fact, and on the forth time I actually finished it. Each time that I read and didn’t finish the book I did enjoy it, but I couldn’t finish it for some reason. 

- To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before 
    - Jenny Han
I struggled throughout the whole book, because it was plain bad. I felt disappointed, in so many ways, I felt disappointed with the love storyline, the stereotypes (why just because your Asian do you have to be an Asian charter at a fancy dress party, girl make it your own and be who ever you wanna be, and why do the popular girls have to be bitchy just because they are popular) 

- Paper Towns 
    - John Green 
It’s not my favourite John Green book, not even close, but I had a hard time reading it because of the hype around John Green, I had no problem reading Looking for Alaska or The Fault in our Stars, but Paper Towns was a different, I Struggled. I don’t know if it’s because I read Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Mattson and the two books are very similar or I just didn’t enjoy Paper Towns

- Eclipse & Breaking Dawn
    - Stephanie Meyer 
I wasn’t a massive fan of the twilight Saga when it first came out though I did get all four books, just to say I had it and see what the hype was about. I didn’t read the last two books until recently and struggled through them both. Breaking Dawn a lot more than Eclipse.  



- One Day Duology
I really liked the first book Just One Day, but did struggle a little when I first read it, Just One Year was a completely different story though. I Struggled so much with it 

July 4th T5W Best Books So Far 2018,

Today’s top 5 Wednesday is all about the best books I’ve read so far in 2018, 

- Matched
I really enjoyed matched every time that I’ve read it, this year was no different.   

- The Lucky One
The Lucky One is really the only book on this list that I read for the first time this year (I have read other books for the first time but haven’t put on the list because they haven’t been as good as one on the list)



- Goodnight, Beautiful 
When I first read Goodnight, Beautiful I liked it but wasn’t to sure about it, but in all honesty it’s a great book. And one that I’ve really enjoyed reading and re reading. 

- The Great Gatsby 

There is no doubt in my mind that the Great Gatsby is one of my favourite books. Especially as I am not really a classic book reader.

- My Best Friends Girl
My best Friends Girl is probably if not definitely my favorite stand alone book. It doesn’t matter how many times I read it. I still love it.