In the afterword, the author thanks someone who told her that the timeline/style/something made the book a tangled mess and made her rewrite it. I can't imagine what that draft was like, if this is the rewrite. It's...sort of a YA? In the sense that things just happen and there are no explanations, very little characterization, just event after event. It's a quest, sort of (the author says it's a hero quest) - but if this were a video game, every player would be screaming for the author's blood. If Ringlet had not lost right at the beginning - if she'd managed to avoid the first real obstacle, rather than falling over and into it - she would have lost completely at the end, because stuff she picked up there was utterly necessary to the puzzle of winning. Are there always seven Stella mermaids? If so, where did one go, and if not, why do all the mermaids "know" there are seven? Why does the organizer girl spend her time, at the end, organizing Ringlet rather than dealing with her own work? The more I think about the story, the less sense it makes. I suppose if you wanted to just skim through it unthinkingly, it might be a fun read - but I like universes with some logic to them. Not for me. ( )