A review by mgleeson
American Mermaid by Julia Langbein

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

American Mermaid is a book within a book of sorts. Penelope, a broke teacher, publishes a novel that gets chosen to be written into a screenplay that she is asked to help write.  The novel she wrote is about wheelchair bound Sylvie, who discovers she is actually a mermaid (just add water)! When the others writers want to change Sylvie to the Americanized version of a mermaid, strange things start happening to the screenplay - threatening things - that Penelope is blamed for. But she has no recollection of making those changes and begins to believe Sylvie is among them in real life.
I found myself more interested in Sylvie's story that Penelope's, which is, honestly, the only thing that kept me turning the pages. I appreciate the story within story concept, and I like how they are woven together, but this is not a book I would recommend to others.