Teenage Mermaid [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Gr 6 up

This light-hearted romance pokes fun at romance itself.

Spencer is surfing in the Pacific before school, when he falls off his surfboard, which then hits him on the head. Is he drowning? He's drowning! But he doesn't even have his drivers license yet! A beautiful young swimmer saves his life, kisses him, and disappears. He wonders if she was a dream, a lifeguard, or a mermaid. He has fallen in love. He has survived with her silver locket held tightly in his fist, so he knows she was real.

Lilly is desperate to retrieve the locket, a family heirloom, before her mother finds out she took it. She is also falling in love with him, and yes, she is a mermaid.

Their problem is that one of them lives on land and the other in water. They take turns telling their side of a fast-moving, perfectly executed story. Amusing dialog (a few swear words add to the realism) and short, snappy, easy-to-read sentences lead with growing suspense to a surprise ending.

Spencer and Lilly are lightly sketched: the plot and characters are an airy scaffold for their evolving feelings. Their world as they tell it has very few adults, and school is definitely an impediment to real life.

This book is going to fly from one reader to another. Girls from grade six up will inhale it, especially if you put a romance label on the spine. Try it with boys who ask for funny books, and count it as a gift for reluctant and poor readers. Readers who enjoy this may also enjoy Fifteen Love, another recent romantic boy/girl duet, with a less airy and more serious approach.

This is a review I did for professional reasons, and as you can tell, I am a school librarian. This is a fun book for you to enjoy.

This is one of those books that I just stumbled upon at my local library. Schreiber is an author that I have been meaning to read, but with my TBR pile at least a mile long, her books have a bad tendency to get constantly pushed back in the pile. However, I was feeling I was in the mood for a fairy tale so I finally decided to give this book a try.

Teenage Mermaid is pretty much what I thought it would be. The plot focuses on Waterlilly (the mermaid) and Spencer (the Earthee) who happen to meet while Spencer is in the middle of drowning. Of course, she saves his life and disappears only moments later. He pines for her, she pines for him... I am pretty sure that you know The Little Mermaid plot

What I liked:

It was a quick read at only 150 pages. Generally, I like her writing style and the new twist she put on the tale. It was a bit refreshing (and funny) to see the characters act like valley girls and boys. Also thanks to the book, I now have tons of funny little quotes-- my favorite is: "I would have even kissed Arnold Schwarzenegger in a blue bikini" (p.37). I feel like Schreiber set out to have fun with this book, and she definately suceeded.

What I did not like:

Although I liked a lot about this book, it is not without its problems. Many of the characters were overly stereotyped and sometimes annoyed me. I liked the main characters, but almost all of the secondary characters could have disappeared and I would not have cared-- I just do not think they added much to the story. For example, one character I really did not care for was Robin. She is a friend of Spencer's who is depicted as different by always wearing dark baggy clothes and being an outcast. She is also in love with Spencer and continuously throwing herself at him. What bothered me the most about her character is that she undergoes an ugly duckling type transformation, but Screiber never explains why. I mean one scene she is normal Robin, then she is "total babe" Robin. It just did not make any sense. My other grip is the necklace. It is basically what bring Lilly and Spencer together. Schreiber hints at it being magical or have magical powers, but it is not really explored. I would start to think Schreiber was going to further explain the necklace, but then she would go off in a different direction.

Overall, it was a good read with some issues. If you like fairy tale retellings, you should like the book since is a fun and offers an interesting twist. I would have liked this book to have more substance to it, but I am not heartbroken that it did not.

Amazing book I'm a teen and love this one I would recommend this book for kids my age looking for love and mystery