The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea

3 stars. I wasn't really blown away by the atmosphere or the romance. The plot was incredibly confusing with Mina forming and breaking a red string of fate several times throughout and it's not explained why until about 3 chapters before the ending. And even the explanation was clunky and left me with unanswered questions. At many points in the story I felt like we were kicking the narrative down the road instead of learning anything about what Mina is supposed to do to save her people. The romance was sweet and quiet but it's not given much time to breathe because we have so many other narrative elements and secrets to figure out. Also, Mina is 16 during the main events of the story and her love interest is immortal so it's a little gross and I feel bad for rooting for them. The book does have studio Ghibli vibes but I felt the execution of the plot was poor.