This review includes some spoilers.
I'm not happy with my read-alikes/watch-alikes list, but I decided it was never going to get much better, so I might as well post my review.
Review:
I won this in a BookLikes giveaway held by the author. Tony Talbot is one of the reviewers BookLikes automatically assigned to me to follow when I first joined the site. His reviews were interesting, so I continued to follow him. I didn't know much about Medusa other than that its description made it sound like it might be a good fit for me, but I knew that Talbot wasn't shy about giving books lower star ratings, and I respected that.
I had some serious mental readjusting to do at the beginning of this book. I hadn't bothered to reread the description before starting and assumed it was science fiction with spaceships in space. As pretty as the cover is, I think it contributed to my confusion. Medusa is actually science fiction with a boat in the ocean. Lissa, the book's 16-year-old main character, has spent her whole life on the ocean, to the point that she can't remember which plants are “trees” and which are “grass.” I was reminded a bit of Waterworld (but, slight spoiler, that's not what's going on here).
Lissa Two's family used to be safe and comfortable, until her father died. Then they had to move to a poorer level in their sea-stead. Lissa's mother turned to prostitution to pay the bills, but even that didn't bring enough money in, so Lissa became a thief. After Lissa's mother died of water-plague, Lissa was saddled with her debts and Lissa Three, her mentally ill younger sister. It was lucky for Lissa that Connie found her.
