Jenna Likes to Read

Sea Change by Aimee Friedman

Posted on 23 August 2009

Sea Change by Aimee Friedman

16-year-old Miranda Merchant is great at science…and not so great with boys. After major drama with her boyfriend and (now ex) best friend, she’s happy to spend the summer on small, mysterious Selkie Island, helping her mother sort out her late grandmother’s estate.

There, Miranda finds new friends and an island with a mysterious, mystical history, presenting her with facts her logical, scientific mind can’t make sense of. She also meets Leo, who challenges everything she thought she knew about boys, friendship…and reality.

Is Leo hiding something? Or is he something that she never could have imagined?

I really wanted to like this book more than I did.  I loved the idea.  A big house on the beach, a mysterious island (off the coast of Georgia!), merfolk and other mythological creatures… it sounds fantastic.  There were parts that I really did like, but there were things I didn’t like as well.  The book just seemed to be lacking something.  I felt the end wrapped up to quickly and it left me feeling a big unresolved.  I turned the page at the end and thought, “Wait, that’s it?”

The “romance” happened too fast – from “I don’t know you” to “I love you” in like a day.  The summer people were cliche and kind of annoying.  I didn’t understand or like Miranda’s mother.  Her behavior seems so out of character from what Miranda explains at the beginning of the book and I didn’t feel like it was explained why she suddenly behaved differently because she was on the island.

Maybe there will be a sequel because I liked it well enough, but I’d like to know what happens next.

Aimee Friedman is one of the authors I should get to meet at the Decatur Book Festival.