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Book Review: Kiss the Girl
Córdova, Zoraida. Kiss the Girl: A Meant to Be Novel. Disney Publishing Group, Hyperion Avenue, NY: 2023.
Thank you, Disney Publishing Group/Hyperion Avenue, for this free advanced reader’s copy.
This is a contemporary romance retelling of The Little Mermaid — inspired by the Disney version, not the darker original fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. Instead of mermaids singing in the sea, the sisters are a Latina music group with mermaid stage personas… and Ariel is attracted to the lead singer, Eric, of another band.
It’s a cute, light, and fun read.
Once I read the back cover copy, I remembered that the title is also a song in the Disney film.
Like Ariel in the film, Ariel in the book collects things. She has a wall of things she picked up here and there on their concert tours. I like how the book references the Disney Little Mermaid film… frequently. There’s even a stuffed toy shark. The seven sisters were in a film called The Little Mermaids. A baseball cap features a crab, and a floatation device is a crab — and it goes on. Very aquatic.
I like the headlines and such between chapters — sometimes there’s instead a review, article, or interview. Sometimes it’s a string of text messages.
A college roommate had Disney’s The Little Mermaid on VHS, and I remember watching it with her. Someone else joined us and said, “Disney made this film for kids, and instead it appeals to teenagers.” Well, this novel is primarily for twenty-somethings. The author is a gazillion years younger than me — in the Acknowledgments she mentions being three years old and the film was on tape. When I was that age or a little older, audio books of Bambi and Cinderella were LPs.
Violet & Steampunk Boy, my favorite book (volume 3) in my middle grade fantasy series Rowanwick Witches, is available here:
