A Mermaid's Tale is part memoir and part overview of several different mermaid myths from around the world. I enjoyed the personal reflections amidst the beautiful illustrations and descriptions of enchanting women of the sea. Now I'm kind of wishing I didn't live such a landlocked life! ( )

No offense to Waterhouse, Burne-Jones, and Rackham whose lush illustrations populate The Mermaid’s Tale, but if Thomas Kincade decided to write an overripe post-feminist memoir, this would be it. Sickly sweet and a bit too introspective, like a blogger on a margarita binge, Adams muses about her childhood preoccupation with mermaids and the current meaning it has for her on womanhood. Or perhaps this is just a book long justification for why little girls start gravitating towards the fantasy of being sea princesses*. However, mythological deconstruction sit side by side with Adams’ reminisces. In those fairy tales when a mermaid’s husband becomes suspicious and jealous and discovers her fishy side instead of a secret lover, the mermaid is forced to leave. The mermaid’s tail, Adams posits, is the symbol for feminine mystery and independence. Likewise, the lure of a siren’s song represents feminine confidence, the theft of a selkie maiden’s seal coat a metaphor for a man trapping a woman into the subservience of marriage, the temperamental Inuit sea goddess Sedna a mirror to a woman’s fickle moods. But modern society has obliterated the connection between mermaids and mystery–today, mermaids have been Disneyfied, sexualized, and commercialized. There are a few interesting nuggets in The Mermaid’s Tale, but I’d mostly categorize this as the sentimental pap that you might get at a museum gift shop.