My Thoughts on Nimue: Freeing Merlin

I recently finished reading Nimue: Free Merlin by Ayn Cates Sullivan and wanted to share my thoughts with you.

First, Nimue: Freeing Merlin follows 17-year-old Nina as she travels to England with her mother to learn more about her family and heritage. While in England, a mysterious woman tasks Nina with finding the legendary Merlin and freeing him from his imprisonment so that he can rid the world of the darkness already looming over it.

Filled with a fairytale vibe, Nimue: Free Merlin weaves Celtic traditions and Arthurian Legends with a story about finding your path and trusting yourself.

Overall, I would consider this an okay story for me and rated it a 3 out of 5.

There were elements of this story that I liked and others that I was not much of a fan of (which I'll share below). Due to the balance between my enjoyment and my dislike, I rated Nimue: Freeing Merlin within the middle of my personal book scale.

One of the things I immensely enjoyed was Sullivan's writing. Her sentences were filled with word choices that crafted a fairytale tone and made the story easier to sink into.

As someone who has yet to read many fantasy-based books and is unfamiliar with Arthurian legends, I valued how the book begins by easing the reader into the legends of Merlin and King Arthur.

However, throughout the book, there were also times when the unique word choices hindered my reading experience.

Within the story, Sullivan uses complex sentences to convey a scene. While I do love reading complex sentences, I did find myself stopping multiple times to re-read paragraphs.

This was because the complex sentences were paired with a fast pace.

Often, scenes did not allow me to fully comprehend what was happening because the next scene occurred before the previous scene could fully be understood.

After a while, a section of scenes would jumble together, and I would have to go back and re-read paragraphs to piece together what I missed.

Usually, this wouldn't bother me, but it happened more than five times that I started to take notice that I was re-reading paragraphs.

Thankfully, the whole book wasn't like this, and there were sections with good pacing that allowed me to enjoy the diction and sentence structure Sullivan used.

I especially enjoyed the scenes where Nina came in contact with the more spiritual side of life.

The second area I also enjoyed was Sullivan's knowledge of Arthurian Legends and Celtic Traditions.

Sullivan combined her knowledge with the story beautifully and allowed her knowledge to be sprinkled in so that it assisted in her world-building.

Basically, while reading, it felt like I was reading a fantasy story rather than a textbook for class.

Sullivan also managed to explain abstract ideas in ways that made sense on a concrete level.

Many spiritual elements were akin to physical emotions and actions that would make it easier for those not knowledgeable about spiritual practices to understand.

Overall, Sullivan's knowledge provides an excellent foundation for the world of Arthurian Legends to thrive.

While I loved Sullivan's writing and knowledge, I was not that fond of the characters.

It wasn't easy to connect with any of the characters in the story, even though we are told their motivations, emotions, and traits.

While reflecting on the story, I noticed that fast pacing contributed greatly to the characters' disconnection.

As mentioned before, the fast pacing prevented me from fully taking in some scenes, which also meant that character development and information passed quickly too.

Particular scenes that contained vital character development and information were glanced over in the story, making it a bit harder to recognize similar emotions and circumstances they faced.

I will note that other scenes within the book had good character development, and the pacing was just right for those particular scenes.

(Contains Spoilers)

For example, I often think about Nina (now Nimue) going to the bottom of the lake and being confronted with the choices she has to make about her future. This scene was memorable because the sentence structure, diction, knowledge, story, and pacing worked together.

It is a scene that I really liked and still think about even today.

Whereas the scene where Nimue creates her shadow self leaves an unfinished understanding of why the shadow self is dangerous. Nimue gets told that her shadow self is a danger to the world, but because the scene moves fast and is filled with a lot of information, it was hard for me to understand what exactly is happening.

(Though granted, this scene might have been more absorbable if I was familiar with Arthurian Legends.)

(End of Spoilers)

So, like writing, character development and pace were other book areas that had good and difficult moments.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Nimue: Free Merlin. It was an okay read, with moments that I enjoyed and moments that I didn't.

I like that Sullivan was able to craft a fantasy story that drew me in and made me reflect on topics like trusting yourself and finding your pathway, but it was also a book that I struggled to read at certain points.