If she hadn’t been so clueless, she might have seen it coming. But really, who expects to get into a relaxing bathtub after a stressful day of shopping for tankinis and come out with scales and a tail? Jade soon discovers she inherited her mermaid tendencies from her mom. But this revelation raises a serious question: if Mom was a mermaid, how did she drown? Jade is determined to find out. But how does a plus-sized, aqua-phobic, mer-girl go about doing that, exactly? And how will Jade ever be able to explain her secret to her best friend Cori, and her crush, Luke? This summer is about to get a lot more interesting…
This book is everything I look for in a quick-read: it's fast-paced enough to keep me interested while also being kinda shallow in the conflict department. It's basically a Saturday morning cartoon in book form...exactly what I needed around the end of the semester with finals coming up.
Jade is a 13 year old girl who just recently lost her mom and is trying to figure out a lot of 'firsts' on her own: first period, first crush, first fight with the BFF, you get the idea. Low and behold her first period leads to her growing a mermaid tail in the bathtub! Turns out her mom was a mermaid who gave up sea life to be with Jade and her father until her tragic passing. Jade takes the news surprisingly well (keeping the book moving forward, yay!) and while trying to figure out her new abilities happens upon, who else but her mom! *gasps* Of course such a pivotal character can't actually be dead - that would just be a downer. She was actually kidnapped because she developed legs and the mer-people who were exiled to lake life were just not having that. (This was not explained any more...literally the entire book's conflict was explained in about a few paragraphs) Insert classic YA heroine logic here: Jade decides SHE will save her mom from the mer-people who captured her and are holding her hostage until they get their freedom. This part didn't make much sense in the way of any logic but the story moved forward and so did I (it's best not to ask questions, just sit back and enjoy the ride at this point). I couldn't help but be totally shocked because this whole time when Jade is telling her dad all about what actually happened to her mom he's totally cool with it. In the end, Jade saves the day, her mom and her social life, all in a quick 200 pages. Now that's my kind of easy read!
Granted this is just book 1 in a series of 4 so there's more time to flush out this whole mer-people in exile situation and of course expand on Jade's life above and below sea level. I will definitely continue to read the series as long as I have a few minutes here and there between studying and other things. Like I mentioned earlier, this book is written for the pre-teen reader; none of the 'problems' in this book are super relatable to me as a twenty-something college student, but it did take me away from all my studies and that was my purpose for reading this book in the first place.
All in all I would recommend this book as a pool or roadtrip read; it's very cutesy and everyone ends up happy in the end so what's not to love? 4 stars
