Belinda Reviews: Helene Boudreau's - "Real Mermaid's Don't Wear Toe Rings"

Jade is coping well with life after the death of her mother, there’s even a pool party to look forward to. For this rather regular sounding thirteen year old girl, growing up is the least of her worries when she discovers she is, in fact, a mermaid.

Her social life, and a potential love interest is sent into a tail spin (excuse the pun) when Jade discovers her mum is alive and being held captive by other mer-people, who are a few scales short of a fillet. She needs to save her mum, straighten out the misunderstanding with Cori, and find a way to talk to Luke again. You know; the usual teenage stuff.

I enjoyed the pacing and the relationships in this coming of age story. Cori is a valuable friend and I’d love to have her at my back any day. That tail however, I doubt I could handle.

This book is aimed at the younger end of the YA market, even to go so far an putting it in the Tween Fiction section, but as a light read after a heavy hitter it works well to cleanse the reading palette. You could even put it in the kit for those tricky almost too old to be baby-sat kids you may be looking after, to keep them quiet for a while.

It’s almost like a younger person’s Fred the Mermaid series.

The second instalment is called Real Mermaids Don’t Hold Their Breath and it was released a little earlier in 2012.

If you want a light and breezy story, with just the right amount of tension maybe consider the Real Mermaids series.

Paperback

Published December 10th 2010 by Sourcebooks, Inc. (first published November 9th 2010)

ISBN 1402244126 (ISBN13: 9781402244124)