Summary:
Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach is her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life.
But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Creatures that called sailors to their doom. That dragged them down and drowned them. That feasted on their flesh. The creature that she's always longed to become: the mermaid.
Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine, the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill.
My Thoughts:
This was an intriguing take on a coming-of-age story. Ren is a swimmer who longs to be a mermaid like the ones she read about as a child, and swimming is her happy place. Her best friend Cathy is also on the swim team, and they both harbor secret feelings for each other. As Ren grows older and closer to going to college, her delusions about becoming a mermaid grow stronger. When she is disqualified for a spot in a swim competition, she goes deeper into madness. She'll never be disqualified again if she sews her legs into a tail.
I did like the dreamy writing style, but I do think this book was more coming-of-age rather than spiraling into madness and body horror. When Ren sews her legs together to make a tail, it's barely talked about other than the way other people view it, and I think that was a missed opportunity to get more into Ren's head and way of thinking. There also wasn't much description of how it looked, which made it hard to visualize while reading. That and the ending make the novel seem unfinished.
My Rating: 2 stars
