Real Mermaids Don't Hold Their Breath by Helene Boudreau

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

Normal is Never Coming Back

Jade is totally confused. As in, "will this be a leg-day or a tail-day?" kind of confused. Even worse, it's been forever since her first kiss with Luke and now—nothing. Not even a text message.

Sigh.

But Jade doesn't have time to figure out the weirdness of boys and how to use her shiny new tail. (Seriously, being a mermaid should come with a handbook.) She has to come up with a plan to get her missing mermaid mom back on dry land.

The only problem is...Jade is afraid of the ocean. But even aqua-phobic mer-girls have to take the plunge sometime...

My thoughts:
This is book two in Boudreau's series about Jade the half mermaid.  The first one was such a fast, fun read that I was excited to read book two in this middle grade series.  I think Boudreau did a good job capturing the angst that early teens have regarding dating, relationships, parents and rules while also incorporating in the supernatural elements of being able to turn into a mermaid, a different mermaid language, and the politics of a whole different group of beings.  I liked how she used our present preoccupation with being connected to each other twenty four hours a day with cell phones, Facebook and texting and showed how those things can both help and hinder us in our pursuit of happiness.

Jade and her friend Cori are spending the summer working at Bridget's Ice Cream Shop while Luke, the mermaid boy Jade shared her first kiss with is off at camp and out of communication, with Chelse who is working to pay off a rare canoe her parents think she lost in the lake.  Unfortunately the canoe was lost when Jade rescued her mother, the mermaid, from a lake where she was being held as a hostage by a group of mer-people.  Since getting her mother into the ocean, Jade has been anxiously waiting for her to return as a person with two legs, hoping her mother has found the tide pool she needs to complete the transformation.  Getting in the way of that are mer-people with a mission, a land developer with little regard for the environment, experimental equipment that keeps running into snags, and the normal angst of being a teen and wondering why the guy you like hasn't called.

The book moved fast, read fast, and managed to stay believable in a way that can be difficult.  It will be interesting to see where Jade and her friends go in book three which is due out in February.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781402264467
• Publisher: Sourcebooks, Incorporated
• Publication date: 5/1/2012
• Pages: 240
• Sales rank: 105,457
• Age range: 9 - 12 Years