Mermaid in Chelsea Creek

It wasn't a book I expected to like much, but I thought I'd give it a try.

The first chapter surprised me, it was grittier than I expected. The book as a whole still isn't any dark, macabre fantasy, but it's more mature than it seems. The writing is nice, sometimes quite great, and the characters and story caught and held my interest. I really enjoyed the book, and it's one of the few times I've eagerly awaited a sequel to a random book I picked off the shelf.

I'm not saying this is a perfect book, and I don't think it's for everybody, but I LOOOOVVVVVEEED it.

One of the reasons I picked it up was that Daniel Handler wrote a rave review of it, and that makes sense to me because I think Michelle Tea and Danielle Handler have somewhat similar styles, in that they are a bit wordy and pretentious but beautiful. I love them both for it, but I can theoretically understand where some readers would find it to be a drawback.

I loved how organically diverse Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is, with Polish and Puerto Rican folklore blending together. I love that one of the protagonist Sophie's mentors is a kind, compassionate, and apparently trans woman.

Also this is the 3rd YA book I've read recently with a character with OCD? Is OCD in now? (All three have been what I believe to be realistic portrayals of actual OCD, not just like, “oh haha I keep my room tidy, I'm soo OCD”).

A few quotes:

“I don't think I'm crazy. I think I was just hanging out underwater with this totally busted, sort of mean mermaid.”

“Andrea worked to harden herself to the onslaught of feelings. The problem with feelings was, first you had one, which was generally bad enough. But then you had a feeling about your feeling, and then a feeling about how you were feeling about your feeling, and then another feeling would pop up at the sight of it all, this teetering pyramid of emotion, and all of it would look wrong to Andrea, all her feeling somehow incorrect, too much or too little, too soft or too hard, and another feeling would emerge at the thought of that. It was endless, having feelings. And god forbid someone noticed you having them, as Sophie just had. Then you had feelings about that, about having been seen, and more feelings still about the other person's feelings. Oh, it was awful.”

by the way there is a lot of talk of feelings in this book, so don't read it if you're not into that. at one point Sophie literally says, “I'm having so many feelings!”