The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn
Published by: Touchstone
Published on: April 2, 2013
Page Count: 339
Genre: Fiction
My Reading Format: Review copy sent to me by the publisher for consideration
Available Formats: Paperback, eBook, and Audiobook
Giveaway: Touchstone has generously offered one of my lucky readers a complimentary copy of The Mermaid of Brooklyn. This contest is open to residents of the US (no P.O. Boxes, please). For a chance to win, leave a comment on this post before Monday, April 15.
Today it is my great pleasure to be Amy Shearn’s host on her TLC Book Tour. This tour is to celebrate her new novel, The Mermaid of Brooklyn, a novel the first appealed to me because of my daughters love for mermaids. I thank my daughter for leading me to this book and TLC Book Tours for inviting me onboard.
I have a lot of fun working as a tour host for TLC Book Tours. They always have great books and authors on tour. Check out their website for more information on this tour and the others that they are hosting.
Summary from the Publisher
SOMETIMES ALL YOU NEED IN LIFE IS A FABULOUS PAIR OF SHOES—AND A LITTLE HELP FROM A MERMAID.
Formerly an up-and-coming magazine editor, Jenny Lipkin is now your average, stretched-too-thin Brooklyn mom, tackling the challenges of raising two children in a cramped Park Slope walk-up. All she really wants is to survive the sweltering New York summer with a shred of sanity intact. But when her husband, Harry, vanishes one evening, Jenny reaches her breaking point. And in a moment of despair, a split-second decision changes her life forever.
Pulled from the brink by an unexpected ally, Jenny is forced to rethink her ideas about success, motherhood, romance, and relationships. But confronting her inner demons is no easy task. . . .
My Review
My 8 year old daughter is obsessed with mermaids. I say this without an ounce of exaggeration because it has been going on for well over a year now. So long, in fact, that the word mermaid anywhere is lights up in vivid neon green under my super mommy radar. That is how I found The Mermaid of Brooklyn. I was on Twitter chatting about God knows what and Amy Shearn is part of the conversation. I checked her bio and the title of her novel was really all that I saw. She could have two heads. I wouldn’t have noticed it. I immediately Googled her title and was instantly sold. I knew I had to have a copy of the book for no other reason than to witness Allison’s reaction when I read it. Little did I know then how interesting the connection Allison and I would have to this book.
My blog was born out of my attempts at winning over the post-partum depression I had after Allison was born. Post-pregnancy changes and Allison’s colic just about sent me over the edge. If she wasn’t fussily nursing, she was screaming. There is a fair amount of anxiety in my family tree, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. The only thing that kept me passably sane was reading Jodi Picoult books at 2 o’clock in the morning. I decided to read as much as I could for myself and my blog began as a tool for keeping my eyes focused on those moments where I could just be, even if just being meant getting lost in someone else’s reality. That was six years ago now, but from the first moments I meant Jenny I knew her. I had been her. She was extremely real to me. While my husband never left me, the fight for survival that she faced rang true to me. I have so been in those moments when your inner most self is telling you that you simply cannot take on more minute let alone one more day. Yet you’re able to continue to struggle through those long days and nights anyway. What also made this book special to me is that it is one of the first that tells the story of a woman struggling with new motherhood and post-partum depression that didn’t make me shrink away. I was fully there with Jenny, but I never once felt an ounce of anxiety. That could be a sign that 8 years’ distance has done it’s work. I think it’s an even bigger indication that Amy Shearn has.
I absolutely loved The Mermaids of Brooklyn. Amy Shearn has written a character who is snarky smart and perfect for all of her imperfections. While magazines, television shows, and so many competitive mothers try to sell this romanticized version of what early motherhood is, Shearn has captured that reality as I see it. It is not a call to sainthood. It is a process that tests you by fire and provides you with the opportunity to learn so much about yourself that you never would have otherwise. Set within a vibrant Brooklyn, the mythology of rusalkas seems as plausible an explanation for what happened to Jenny as her finding an unconscious mechanism for coping with single motherhood. I would never go back to those days as a mother to two young daughters, but as Jenny will discover, it is worth every minute and more. After all, had it not been for my formerly colicky baby’s tween fascination with mermaids, this book might have slipped under my radar.
Amy Shearn’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
