Originally reviewed at Christa's Hooked on Books 
 This year is definitely going to be the year of mermaids! This is my second so far this year and I've got three more waiting for me already! After hearing some positive reviews from other bloggers, and learning that The Vicious Deep was told from a male point-of-view, I picked it up excited to be sucked in and entertained. 
 Unfortunately I did not get as sucked into this book as I would have hoped. Instead I ended up stopping and starting more then a few times and at one point seriously considered marking it a DNF (did not finish). Let me be clear, it wasn't all bad. The plot of this book was actually pretty neat. I loved the idea of a merman quest to prove you're worthy to be king. I loved the variety of the characters introduced and many parts had a distinctly Percy Jackson feel. I love the Percy Jackson series and was happy to see that The Vicious Deep had a similar feel. 
 My problem with this book however was Tristan. He was like that cocky main character in a Pixar movie who starts out thinking he's better than everyone and throughout the story he learns a valuable lesson about friendship and community and what not. That's fine in a kids movie about rodents or zoo animals but I have a hard time with a novel about a teenage boy taking that format. I just made me shake my head at the cliche. 
 First of all he's cocky. This would be alright if he was taken down a few pegs throughout the story but as far as I could tell he's just as cocky at the end as he was in the beginning. Where was the character growth? Second of all I found him to be more than a little sexist. His attitude towards females is less than desirable and if I ever heard one of my friends talk the way he does I would probably smack them. He has a slight change in attitude when it comes to Layla, his best friend and the girl he actually loves. But I'm not 100% I buy that you can have little respect for an entire gender except for one person. 
 Finally I found more than a few passages quite problematic. I think authors should be careful about how they say things and the implications of those statements because words have power. Especially in a teen novel. Example: 
 "Even Ryan stares at Kurt in a way that is uncool for dudes to look at other dudes." 
 (p.107 of the e-galley). 
 This made me physically cringe and it wasn't the only instance that made me feel this way. 
 I was really disappointed by The Vicious Deep. It was not what I was expecting at all. I can only hope for better things from the other mermaid books this year. 
 Final recommendation: I cannot recommend this book. It displays some attitudes that I'm really not okay with.