Aquamarine

Best friends Hailey and Claire are twelve years old and lamenting the fact that their favorite summer hang-out, the near-deserted Capri Beach Club, is about to be closed forever. More than that, they’re both dreading the end of summer when Claire will be moving away. Then one day they find a feisty mermaid named Aquamarine living in the Capri’s swimming pool.

Welcome to Aquamarine, Alice Hoffman’s short (all-too-short) novel—her first written for young teens. Though Hoffman has previously written a couple of children’s books, her novels have been mainly for adults (Practical Magic, The River King, Here on Earth and others). Still, there’s always been a little bit of pixie dust sprinkled on most of the pages. In interviews, show more Hoffman has said she uses fairy tales as her models and is more interested in creating alternate universes, not everyday reality.

There’s a little of the everyday in Hailey and Claire’s world, but there’s also plenty of Hans Christian Andersen. Hoffman’s style skips along light as a beach ball blown by the wind. At heart, however, the two girls are facing some very serious fears—the end of the Capri and the end of their lifelong friendship:

Once the bulldozers started in on the wooden cabanas, once they destroyed the pool and the patio and the snack bar, wasn’t it possible that Claire would no longer remember summers spent at the Capri with her parents?…When the Capri was gone, maybe they would forget each other as well. They’d grow up and be just like all those other people who didn’t know what it meant to have your best friend living right next door, grown-ups who had no idea of what it was like to have someone understand you so well they could tell what you were thinking before you even spoke aloud.

Then, in the last days of August, the magic happens late one night:

The wind was so strong, it knocked on the rooftops and rattled the stars up above. Both Hailey and Claire had the feeling that something was about to happen, in spite of how much they wanted their lives to remain the same.

Not a chance of that happening after they find a mermaid in the bottom of the pool, stranded there by the big storm.

Her hair was pale and silvery and her nails were a shimmering blue. Between each finger there was a thin webbing, of the sort you might find on a newborn seal or a duck.

“What are you two staring at?â€? the mermaid said, when she turned and saw the girls gaping.

Her voice was as cool and fresh as bubbles rising from the ocean. She was as beautiful as a pearl, with a faint turquoise tinge to her skin and eyes so blue they were the exact same color as the deepest sea. But her watery beauty didn’t mean the mermaid knew her manners.

Despite the fact that Aquamarine is “much ruder than most creatures you might find at sea,â€? the two girls decide to pull off one last adventure before their Summer of Friendship ends. They play matchmaker between Aquamarine and Raymond, the darkly handsome, happy-go-lucky snack bar attendant.

That’s all I’ll tell you of Aquamarine’s plot…but if you’ve been paying attention in your Romantic Movies 101 class, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how the whole thing turns out.

The trouble with Aquamarine is that it all “turns outâ€? much too quickly. Hoffman’s word choice and sentence composition are pitch-perfect and lyric, but while there’s a density of language, there’s a sparsity of pages (98 of them, to be exact). Add to this the fact that the publisher, Scholastic, designed the volume with plenty of white space on the pages and you’ve got a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reading experience. I read my copy while I was dining alone at a Mexican restaurant; I finished the book before I reached the bottom of my first helping of chips and salsa. And I’m a fast eater.

Sadly, the brevity of Aquamarine works against it. We’re never allowed to get close to any of the characters: Raymond remains a stereotype cabana boy character, Aquamarine isn’t quirky enough and Claire and Hailey are little more than the kind of sweetly pining young girls you’d find in a Mary Kate and Ashley video. I wanted more, more, more and by the time I polished off the last tortilla chip, I was starting to wonder if Hoffman didn’t have extra flesh to drape on this bare-bones book but, for some reason, held off because she was afraid young readers wouldn’t endure a volume they’d have to hold with two hands.

Well, all I can say is, when I was a boy (a sweetly pining young boy), I would read thick-n-chunky books like A Wrinkle in Time, The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Little House in the Big Woods. I never once let my eyes slip off the page or had to stifle a yawn. There’s nothing wrong with a brick-sized children’s book. You’d be surprised how many marvelous and multi-colored worlds can be hidden inside bricks at the library.

But maybe things are different these days. After all, Mrs. Hoffman has to compete with the Disney Channel’s dumbed-down hyperkinetic entertainments, the sugar-coated blare of Britney Spears and the cordless-phone conversations with friends breathlessly giggling about the oh-so-cute boy in the third row of Mrs. Harmon’s class (hey, I’m the father of a teenage girl; I speak from experience). Against this synthetic culture-noise, I guess long books about mermaids and cabana boys don’t stand a chance.

So what kind of person reads Aquamarine? You’d be surprised.

For the past three weeks, the book sat next to my computer in the basement, waiting for me to scratch out a review. One day last week, while he was searching the Internet for anime art, my oldest son—a 16-year-old who normally disdains All Things Gooey and Romantic—picked up Aquamarine and, like me, read it in one sitting.

After I had my eyebrows surgically removed from my hairline, I asked him what he thought of it. “I liked it a lot, but I’m with you, Dad,â€? he said. “I think it was way too short. I would have liked to see more of the romantic relationship developed between the mermaid and the snack bar guy.â€?

High praise indeed, coming from a teenager who flees in terror whenever a Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks movie comes on. show less

I flew through this in less than an hour, and really loved it. It captures that heartbreaking sense of loss that comes when a close friend moves away. It’s written for younger readers, but I found it spoke to me as an adult too. I think it’s less a story about finding a mermaid, and more about honouring the magic of friendship.

Best friends Hailey and Claire spend their last summer together before Claire moves away at the old Capri Beach Club, where they discover the mermaid Aquamarine in the unused pool one day. Their efforts to return her to the sea before her demise parallel their struggle to come to terms with their impending separation.

Hoffman, whose adult work seems to straddle the line between fantasy and "chick lit," made her first foray into the world of children's literature with Aquamarine, which is short and unremarkable. I understand that mermaids hold a strong appeal for a certain segment of our young population (for me, it was dragons), but surely there are better works out there...? The Emily Windsnap series by Liz Kessler, for instance, or show more Mollie Hunter's The Mermaid Summer. show less

Best friends Hailey and Claire are spending their last summer together before Claire moves to Florida with her grandparents. The Capri Beach Club has been the scene of so many memories for the girls, but this summer is especially bittersweet for them. Then, the morning after an awful storm, Hailey and Claire discover something unusual in the murky water at the bottom of the pool. There in the depths is a mysterious creature with a sharp tongue and a broken heart: a mermaid named Aquamarine has been separated from her sisters, swept away by the force of the storm.

Trapped in the deep end of the pool, Aquamarine is not only suffering from a severe case of homesickness, she is also experiencing the pangs of first love - for a totally show more inappropriate creature - a human teenage boy. Now, as this mythological yet very real being starts to fade in the burning August sun, the mermaid's fate rests with Hailey and Claire.

Just on the edge of growing up, during a summer that is the hottest on record, Claire and Hailey are discovering that life can take an unpredictable course, best friends are forever, and magic can often be found in the unlikeliest places. In Aquamarine, best-selling author Alice Hoffman weaves a luminous tale of nostalgia and enchantment, perfect for readers both young and old.

I've had this book on my TBR pile for almost three years. Despite waiting for such a long time to read the book, I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It was certainly intriguing and while definitely written for children, I found the characters well-developed and extremely likable. I give this book an A! show less

I love Alice Hoffman. In fact, she probably deserves a space on my Top Ten favorite authors list.

That said, this was not one of my favorite works. I love the short story format, but somehow it lacked the weight or profundity that I find most rewarding about the way a short story forces an intense focus on a few characters or events. It didn't have the carefully crafted feeling of some of Hoffman's longer works (possibly because she used much-simplified language to appeal to younger readers?).

In the end, if there was a point to this story, I just didn't get it. It seemed mildly silly. I also found myself objecting to the hackneyed trope of two characters with absolutely nothing in common (here, a college student and a self-centered show more mermaid) who fall deeply in love either at first sight (for the mermaid catching a glimpse of the handsome college student) or over the course of a few hours (for the college student, it happened over a dinner of tunafish sandwiches catered by two matchmaking tweens who put the mermaid in a wheelchair for the occasion). show less

Hailey and Claire have been friends forever. They are heartbroken that they will no longer be together because Claire is moving away when summer ends. The girls spend every day going to the beach club that they've always gone to, trying to make the days last. This isn't easy, as the summer seems to be slipping away faster the more they try to hold onto it. The beach club is falling apart and being torn down, which makes their impending separation seem that much harder. As the end of summer draws closer, a crazy storm hits Cape Cod. When the girls go to the club in the morning, the abandoned pool looks murky and disgusting. But that doesn't stop Hailey from diving right in, and what she sees changes everything. What are the chances of show more finding a stubborn mermaid under the water? Is she real or a figment of the girls’ imagination? Will they be able to grant the mermaid her one request before she agrees to go back to the ocean? What exactly will happen at the end of the summer? Check out this beachy read to find out!

I read Aquamarine by Alice Hoffman in just one sitting, as it is only about one hundred pages. The story of friendship is one that I think most people will be able to relate to, especially anyone who has ever had to move away from their best friend. I could relate to how scary it can be to have distance in a friendship, and how the girls worry that somebody else might take their place. I like that Claire and Hailey got to have one more fanciful event before they were separated from each other. I have never read a book with a mermaid in it, so this short read was a good way to get my feet wet. I think this book will appeal more to girls than boys based on the friendship between Hailey and Claire and the mermaid aspect, but boys may enjoy it too. Kids between the ages of eight and twelve will enjoy this fast read and long for some time near the ocean! show less

Aquamarine is a coming of age, magical tale about two 12 year old best friends about to be parted at the summer’s end. Claire and Hailey have lived next door one another all their lives. Claire’s family is about to move away to Florida at the end of the summer. The two girls hang out at Capri Beach Club, a neglected and shabby place about to bulldozed at the end of the summer.



Despite the girls’ fear of change, the clock is ticking and summer is rapidly coming to an end. Then one morning, after a particularly harsh storm, they find a mermaid named Aquamarine in the bottom of the Capri Beach Club’s pool . She is grouchy from being trapped in the pool, but refuses to leave after laying eyes on Raymond, the handsome boy working show more the food stand. The girls concoct a scheme to give Aquamarine one magical evening with Raymond (while still keeping her true identity a secret) before they safely return her to the sea.



This is a quick, sweet story and delightful read. The reader will fall in love with the Hailey and Claire’s friendship bond. Anyone who has lost a best friend as a child will identify with their heartache and smile at their attempts to assist Aquamarine. It’s a short novel, geared toward younger teens but still can be enjoyed by adults. I enjoyed the underlying theme of adolescence being a magical time where friendships are true and bonds unbreakable. Aquamarine’s haughtiness and rebellion against her father added a comic twist to the story as well. show less