Mermaid in Chelsea Creek (2013) by Michelle Tea

 1001 Novels: A Library of America

Mermaid in Chelsea Creek (2013)

by Michelle Tea

Massachussets: 17/30

Chelsea, Massachussets

    Despite having spend close to an entire month in Boston over the past decade, I've never got a sniff of Chelsea, which is technically a Boston suburb but functionally part of Boston.  Chelsea is separated from Boston by the Mystic River, a body of water that serves as a divider between cosmopolitan Boston and the working-class, white suburbs north of town.   Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is, you guessed it, another YA title about a sad teen being raised by a single mom.  She amuses herself by going down to a dirty creek and playing the suffocation game, where you hold your breath until you pass out.  During one of these episodes the titular mermaid appears to her and points her to a destiny that includes- can you guess?!?!- great magical powers and a destiny which includes saving the world, or something.  Mermaid is the first of a trilogy so Sophie Swankowski doesn't get very far in this, the first book.

  The reader is introduced to a variety of characters, some magical (talking pigeons!) and others less so.  As far as YA books go, Mermaid is relatively benign and readable for an adult- probably because it was published by McSweeney's and not a mainstream publisher.  Still, it is hard not to be irritated with yet another YA book about a struggling teen girl.   Look, I get it, it is tough to be a teenage girl in a disadvantage neighborhood.  It seems like there is plenty of thematic overlap in these books:  Issues with their parents, issues with their school, a lack of direction to their future.  Sounds like teenagers everywhere, right?

   Mermaid in Chelsea Creek was one of these 1001 Novels books where I checked out the Audiobook and then quickly realized that listening to an Audiobook of this title would be a nightmare- I can't take ten hours of a teenage girl complaining about her life, it's just interminable. All their complaints are exactly the same.  So then I checked out the hardback from the library and it went down easy.