When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen

Title & Author:
When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen
Publisher:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date:
February 28, 2012
Pages:
296
Source:
ARC from Publisher

After seventeen-year-old Felicita’s dearest friend, Ilven, kills herself to escape an arranged marriage, Felicita chooses freedom over privilege. She fakes her own death and leaves her sheltered life as one of Pelimburg’s magical elite behind. Living in the slums, scrubbing dishes for a living, she falls for charismatic Dash while also becoming fascinated with vampire Jannik. Then something shocking washes up on the beach: Ilven’s death has called out of the sea a dangerous, wild magic. Felicita must decide whether her loyalties lie with the family she abandoned . . . or with those who would twist this dark power to destroy Pelimburg’s caste system, and the whole city along with it. – Goodreads

My brain is still processing all the crazyness that occured in The Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen.

Where do I even begin? When the Sea is Rising Red is like a crazy combination of fantasy and paranormal. There are VAMPIRES but they’re totally different than the Twilight kind of vampire because these vampires are looked down on as basically social climbing scum. Which was kind of awesome. We weren’t supposed to like them, which is kind of rare in YA these days.

And the magic! I loved what Cat Hellisen did with magic, with different classes of power and what each class needs to perform their magic.

The writing I thought was pretty brilliant. Very, very descriptive and flow-y.

I think my favourite part was all the different legends and rumors and tales passed down among the lower classes. Each one had a different story and explanation for why things happened and it was humorous but also totally real because it was like a game of telephone but played over hundreds of years.

The love triangle was weird. I actually don’t even know what to say about the characters. Felicita was brave and determined, and I really admired that. Especially towards the end. Dash? Jannik? I just. I can’t. Those of you who’ve read it need to tell me how you feel because none of them ended up where I thought they would, hah!

The story itself in When the Sea is Rising Red hurt my brain. I mean, I was flipping the page and going what what what they did what he did what HE SAID WHAT and WAIT WHO DIED?

Is my review of When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen coherent at all? I didn’t think so. Let me try to sum it up – When the Sea is Rising Red is crazy. The magic elements were awesome, although I’m still unsure where I land on some of the characters, namely the males. But I enjoyed it for the most part and managed to read it in one day. If you’re up for a paranormal/fantasy roller coaster, do check out When the Sea is Rising Red. And let me know what you think!

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