The Mermaids of Lake Michigan - Suzanne Kamata
3 Stars
ABOUT THE BOOK -
Elise Faulkner is more at home in the waters of her beloved Lake Michigan than on land where her beauty queen mom is always on her back about her lack of a social life; her sister is dating the boy of her dreams; her favorite penpal--the one who wrote about mermaids in Ghana--has gotten married and ended their correspondence; and no one's allowed to talk about her glamorous great-grandmother, the deep-sea wreck diver. Elise is biding her time with books until she can flee. But then crazy Chiara Hanover pops into her life, as does Miguel, a mysterious carnival worker whose dark future has been predicted by a gypsy.
Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications including Real Simple, Brain, Child, Cicada, and The Japan Times. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
MY THOUGHTS -
This was a very "different" book and not what I thought it was going to be at all! And I am not sure if that was a good thing or not.
To
be honest when I started reading this book I thought that I might
not even finish it, it started out very slow for me. But then halfway
through something happened it was like Bam! Different story, different
author, totally different feeling. The story got interesting, exciting,
very heartfelt, and sad.
And
the whole time I was reading the first half of the book I kept thinking
"what the heck does this even have to do with mermaids, did I
misunderstand." But then again… Well I can't tell you! That would ruin
the story. All I can say is that by the time I was finished with this
book I was crying and so glad that I had continued reading.
At
first I didn't like Elise, frankly she bored me. I liked her friend,
Chiara. Now there was an exciting girl with some guts! But then again
halfway through the book Elise started to change and she started to
remind me of a younger me. I was a lot like her when I was her age. I
just wanted to live life with a reckless abandon. I tried things that
other people would scoff at. Now here was an Elise I could relate to.
All in all, slow beginning, last half of the book was better, with an excellent ending! While this won't go down as one of my favorite books - It was definitely worth the read.
I voluntarily posted this review after receiving a copy of this book from TLC Book Tours - Thank You!
Thanks for your honest review of this book for the tour.
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