Aurabel - Lorali (Paperback)

AURABEL is as magical and lyrical and brilliant and special and original as its author, the lovely Laura Dockrill. I adored it. Laura Dockrill's criminally underrated YA books are about mermaids; but mermaids as you've never seen them before. Aurabel is the follow-up to 2015's Lorali and they're both lovely, lyrical, beautifully weird books about a matriarchal community where mermaids are the salvaged bodies of women wronged by society. There's so much magic and fun and brilliant world building layered with sharp commentary about women's bodies and growing up - all written in Dockrill's gorgeous style which is fiercely contemporary and poetic all at the same time. Aurabel is quite unlike anything else being published this year Vibrant, savage and funny, AURABEL is a mermaid tale for modern times. I found Dockrill's writing very unique and interesting the story raises some very interesting issues about body image, internet fandom and what it means to be human