Girlboss, gaslight, gatekeeping mermaids all to herself. She took sports anime a little too seriously. ( )

3.5. Really crisp and poetic prose. This story is full of rage and determination but also a very palpable and tragic sense of loneliness and unbelonging. I feel like parts of this were repetitive, but not totally in a way that didn't work. Ren is grappling with so many things in life (an abusive swim coach, feelings for her friend, a constant estrangement) and watching her try and get through these things is heartbreaking at times. The climactic scene was so difficult to read...don't read this book while eating lunch, y'all...
Would recommended to those looking for a book about queer girlhood with a big dose of body horror. ( )

Fiction, coming of age, swimming ( )

Ren Yu, an American-born child of Chinese immigrant parents, finds the place she belongs in the pool as one of the top athletes on her high school swim team. Her life is dedicated to trying to please her strict mother and abusive coach while pushing her body to the limit to shave seconds of her time. At the beginning of the book, Ren declares she's a mermaid, but whether that is a metaphor or if she undergoes a magical transformation is something not immediately explained (the actual story may surprise you!).

The novel is written in first person in Ren's voice detailing her anxieties and the visceral description of her body's suffering whether it be in the pool, the pain of menstruation, or the expectations placed upon it by others. Alternate chapters are written as letters to Ren from Cathy, her best friend on the swim team with whom she shares a mutual, but unspoken, romantic attraction. This debut novel deals with high school as a horror story incorporating the torments of youth sports, racial prejudice, and mental illness. ( )

All her life, Ren has loved stories of mermaids, from the sweet Disney story to the strangest of folktales. She longs to become a water-dweller, to be one of the mermaids. Her beginning her transformation begins with joining the high school swim team, of spending her her hours and days soaked in the chlorine-rich waters of Olympic-sized swimming pools, water colored blue and sharply scented, each lane marked off with floating ropes. Becoming a swimmer isn't easy, the coach is abusive, the other team members come from wealthier, whiter families, but Ren makes one friend, and besides friendship isn't the point. The point is becoming better, the point is becoming a mermaid.

This wild and off-kilter story by Jade Song is one that is unsettling and almost claustrophobic in feel. Ren is a lonely Chinese-American girl whose mother works long hours and who both longs to be the best swimmer on the high school team and has the drive to do so. This coming-of-mermaid tale shows how dedicated an athlete longing to excel must be, as Ren sacrifices everything in her life to be the best and eventually comes up with a plan to be even more than that. This novel was unsettling and surprised me often. ( )