he tries to eat MC

Who basically leaves their child to fend for herself by the age of three??? That's WAY too young. I don't know much about law but they should be arrested for child neglect. I could understand if they were dead, or if she had been old enough to support herself, or maybe they had given her to someone else to raise (which would negate the child neglect). However, these kinds of events cause enormous mental and emotional damage to a child. They might grow up thinking they are unworthy of love and spiral into depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems. That is probably one of the worst things a parent can do to a child- leave them with mental and emotional scars from neglect and abandonment.

They used protecting and saving endangered and magical species as an excuse to do that, and I would say that is a very important cause, but that is no excuse to just "leave her alone" at the age of three. When MC falls into the river and nearly drowns they are apparently too busy photographing a boa to even care. They don't even show a reaction when the fact that she would have been eaten is mentioned. Instead they are too busy getting excited over her marriage to ML and the fact that she will be helping to continue his species. They feel remorse for a brief second when they mention leaving her at three, and then dismiss it right after. Maybe they will be redeemed later in the story but right now I am just so pissed at the way they treat MC. Like she's nothing but a tool to further the species. Like she's worthless, or at least worth less that all the rare species of the world. Sorry for the rant. I'm done now.

I dislike her parents. They don't care about her, or her thoughts at all.

And while I do understand her pain and her troubles,

Like what one reader had pointed out, I don't know when or how exactly did the merman fall for her. He didn't like her even when they first got engaged, and then bam: complete turn around when he got to her house.