This was a very unique read and interesting. I got a little bogged down in places but it picked back up for me. Clever plot.
Many thanks to Doubleday and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This one wound up being a DNF for me. (Since Netgalley requires a rating, I always give DNFs three stars to keep my rating from skewing the average - I don't think it's fair to give a rating on a book I didn't finish.) I got a kick out of the MC for the most part, but she kind of wore on me by the middle. I also was curious about her book, which alternated with her POVs. But for some reason I just wasn't compelled to pick this up when I had time to read. Since I wasn't excited about it, I wound up moving on to other books and, after weeks of having it listed as Currently Reading, finally decided to call it quits and officially DNF.

If you’re looking for a book that’s a little bizarre, incredibly unique, very smart, and tons of fun, might I suggest AMERICAN MERMAID by Julia Langbein?

Penelope, a broke teacher, finds her life forever changed when her debut novel about a scientist in a wheelchair who discovers her legs are actually part of a mermaid tail, hits it big. She quits her job and heads to Los Angeles to adapt the novel into a film. The issue? She’s forced to work with a team who are determined to morph her sensitive and thoughtful novel into a big-budget action film. As the writing process progresses, things begin to go awry, and Penelope can’t help but wonder if her main character has actually come to life.

I mean, how utterly bonkers and original is that premise? I was hooked from the start! This is truly one of the most unique books I’ve read in a loooong time, and I really enjoyed it! It’s genre-bending in the best way. There’s some really clever usage of the book within a book plot device (I normally don’t love this, but it was really effective in here!). The entire book is really creative — I normally prefer my books to be rooted in reality, but the mermaid potentially coming to life plot line was super smart and really engaging, even for this skeptic.

Where this book really shone for me was in the way Langbein was able to weave in commentary about feminism, women in media/Hollywood, and climate change. It read like a natural extension of the story, and never felt heavy-handed. The writing is really strong in here. Langbein is hilarious, and the book is peppered with some fantastic one-liners. I also particularly enjoyed the behind the scenes look at writing a screenplay, and loved the Hollywood details and the cleverly stereotypical characters.

There’s a lot going on in here, and there were a few areas where I would have liked a bit more balance and cohesion between Penelope and Sylvia’s storylines. Otherwise, this was a super strong debut!

4.5 stars

I guess I like the weird ones.

Because "American Mermaid" is just that – weird, offbeat, quirky.

And it’s a stellar debut. Julia Langbein has written a novel that shines with uniqueness and creativity.

The best part about it – we get two books in one. The first book being the story of Penelope, a high school teacher who has struck gold with her debut novel, "American Mermaid." When the novel hits the bestseller list, Penelope soon finds herself leaving her quiet Connecticut life behind for the sparkle of Hollywood and the opportunity to co-write the "American Mermaid" screenplay for a major studio.

The second book is Penelope’s novel, "American Mermaid," excerpts from which are interspersed within the main narrative thread featuring Penelope. This is where we meet Penelope's beloved protagonist, Sylvia, a young woman who, after spending her entire life in a wheelchair, discovers that her useless legs are the remnants of a mermaid tail.

Writing a book within a book is no easy feat, but Langbein pulls it off flawlessly. Penelope and Sylvia’s stories parallel and intersect in such interesting ways, and I really don’t know which story I enjoyed more.

But what will make "American Mermaid" a tough sell for some readers is the writing. It’s cerebral and not very straightforward, making it difficult to glean Langbein’s meaning from her prose.

On top of that, the story is tinged with both fantasy and sci-fi while being written with a feminist and satirical bent. Langbein also incorporates a dark, biting, and often ridiculous humor into the narrative, and while all of this is a huge plus for me, others may not be as enamored with such a mélange.

For this reader, though, "American Mermaid" is a perfect fit. The comedy of it, the absurdity of it, the originality of it – I just loved it.


My sincerest appreciation to Julia Langbein, Doubleday Books, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.

American Mermaid was one of my most anticipated reads of 2023. This debut novel is about how far we are willing to go to protect ourselves from truly selling out. Penelope has written a feminist novel, also titled American Mermaid and Hollywood is clamoring to turn it into a movie...but at a huge cost. But in a way the screenplay starts to enact its revenge much in the same way the siren leads a sailor into the depths of danger. This is an entertaining read and for those looking for a satiric take on the movie industry, this is for you!

Penelope is a high school teacher turned writer who has moved from Connecticut to LA to turn her book into a movie. She has a troubled relationship with her family and her mermaid has an evil father. Penelope and Sylvia’s story mash together in this novel within a novel. As the story unfolds, both in Penelope’s real work and Sylvia’s fictional world, weird things start to happen in LA. Penelope begins to question if Sylvia may have jumped out of her story to tell a story of her own.

I’m not sure I like the premise of a story within a story. I found this book slow and a little hard to follow. I felt that Penelope’s story was a bit odd and disjointed. Sylvia’s story was a bit more exciting and in all honesty, I think I would have enjoyed simply reading Sylvia’s story instead. I liked the environmental tie in of global warming but the rest may have been a bit too far fetched for me.

Penelope, a high school teacher in Connecticut, is surprised when her feminist fantasy mermaid novel suddenly goes viral. She quits her job and moves to Los Angeles to help adapt the novel into a film.

As she slowly loses control of the project and watches her story dissolve into a shadow of what it once was, Penelope also loses her grip on reality believing that the protagonist from her story is manipulating her work in real life.

The narrative switches back and forth from Penelope’s reality and her story. This was a very cool concept in theory, but I did not love the execution. I found myself dreading the chapters from her novel, and ultimately I was just dreading the entire story.

The ending was so unsatisfying for me, but I guess that was probably the point. Sometimes life (and books) are unsatisfying.

American Mermaid ~ Julia Langbein

When Penelope’s novel becomes a best-seller, she’s as shocked as anyone and now that it’s being turned into an action movie, she’s blown away. But when they start to change her main character from a heroine to a sex-object, strange things start to happen on set.

“American Mermaid follows a young woman braving the casual slights and cruel calculations of a ruthless industry town, where she discovers a beating heart in her own fiction, a mermaid who will fight to move between worlds without giving up her voice. A hilarious story about deep things, American Mermaid asks how far we’ll go to protect the parts of ourselves that are not for sale.”

Penelope is a broke high school teacher who has written a novel: American Mermaid. It’s the story of a wheelchair bound scientist who discovers her legs are really vestiges of a tail. When it becomes a bestseller Penelope soon finds herself lured to LA by promise of easy money to turn her book into a screenplay.

As the studio pressures Penelope to turn her amazing scientist lead into a teenage sex object strange and threatening things start to happen. When Penelope’s screenwriting partner try to kill of the main character completely, Penelope starts to wonder if her character doesn’t only exist on paper.

This book was rather entertaining! I really enjoyed the different formats the book presented. I am usually a fan of a book within a book setting and I found I really enjoyed it here as well. I found the writing rather clever, and while not laugh out loud funny the book was humorous. I found the characters unique and satisfying. I had originally picked this one up on my kindle, but then received the hard copy. This is one that I preferred reading in physical copy as it was harder to get the formatting on my screen. I see great things from this author going forward!

I want to say thank you so much to Doubleday Books and Netgalley for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This was quirky and fun. Quirky and fun aren't necessarily my preferred types of reads, but I know they are many others. Check this out if that style is for you!

I love the thought of mermaids. I really wanted to like this story. Sadly, it was not for me - I found it crass and weird and not in a good way. It felt insulting to the female species.

This was a really fun but wild ride.

I am really fascinated by the idea of mermaids and am always looking out for anything related to mermaids so I was really hoping that this would be right up my alley. Unfortunately the magical realism was overshadowed by the wild writing and inner dialogue.

I think the author has something really beautiful to dive into and I will definitely read more in the future. The heart of this book was absolutely lovely!

Thank you to Julia Langbein for writing this book and allowing me to read it in exchange for a fair and honest review!

**Many thanks to NetGalley, Doubleday, and Julia Langbein for an ARC of this book!**

An attempt at a deep dive...that lands solidly in the shallow end of the pool.

American Mermaid is the Magnum Opus of one Penelope "Penny' Schleeman, a novel that has now been optioned and is headed for an adaptation on the silver screen. Penny doesn't know much about Hollywood, other than that life is diametrically opposed to her existence as a high school teacher. She heads for L.A. and starts working with a rather obnoxious male duo to bring her book to life...but it works a LITTLE too well. Penny's protagonist Sylvia (who discovers that the legs that keep her wheelchair bound are actually part of a TAIL...and yep, she's a mermaid) starts to make a real-life cameo. As Penny fights to keep her character's integrity intact in the face of studio pressure, she begins to hear noises that others don't hear and feel things others couldn't possibly feel...others that aren't MERMAIDS, anyway. Could those really be siren calls...and has Sylvia truly come up out of the pages to be Part of Our World?

Genre-benders tend to either be a slam dunk or a complete miss for me as a reader, and this one is bizarre to say the least. There is a 'fantasy' element, some sci-fi, environmentalism talk, faux-feminist prose, AND eye-roll worthy Hollywood critique...quite a bit of content to try to jam into just over 300 pages. The book bounces back and forth between excerpts of American Mermaid the book and Penny's experience with the adaptation (and the subsequent chaos) and to be honest, it almost felt like she started writing one book, didn't know how to flesh it out, and built the second book around it. I can't say that I enjoyed EITHER story line. Even if they had been connected in a more cohesive way, the excerpts from the book started to drag and then get a bit out there by the end and I just didn't buy what the author was selling when it came to the "my fictional character is coming to life...and might also be me but I'm not sure" angle either.

And then there's the "humor". This author is a stand-up comic, and I have no idea what her comedy shows are like, but if they're anything like this book, I can honestly say I wouldn't even CONSIDER attending one of them. Like many comics, she relies heavily on crass humor, and the two male Hollywood-ites that Sylvia has to deal with are so over the top obnoxious, I could hardly stand even SKIMMING their sections of dialogue/texts. Langbein also has some sort of fascination with mentioning genitalia: I can't even TELL you how many times body parts (or weird nicknames for said body parts, such as 'cooch' and 'chode') littered the narrative. I just didn't understand it. If Langbein was attempting to make her heroine some type of feminist and environmentalist set to right the wrongs of Hollywood, I don't think this was quite the way to go about it.

All of this grandiose posturing about how women are sexualized in Hollywood etc. didn't feel like the author was treading any sort of new territory, and having a lead who acted like a cross between a wild child and a petulant teen probably wasn't the best way to sell this message. I appreciate her attempts to talk about environmentalism too, but this was yet another message that got 'lost at sea', as it were. I do think if she had just taken the book within the book and threw ALL of her energy into that piece, it could have been a better read, since those passages existed without some of the obnoxious behavior in Penny's story line...but sadly, we will never know.

I'll leave you with an example of the sort of 'deep thinking' and postulating that Penny does from time to time which should also give you a good sense of Langbein's particular brand of humor:

"If that's what love is, then won't it bind us all collectively instead of being a thing that makes two vain shitheads hump?"

...

I can't say that I cared enough to find out.

2.5 stars

American Mermaid follows Penelope, an English teacher from the East Coast whose debut novel ends up blowing up on social media. Soon after the book, American Mermaid, is optioned for a movie and Penelope moves to LA to write the script. As the film producers begin to change more and more of Penelope's story, soon weird things start happening to the script and behind the scenes. Penelope swears it isn't her - but who else could it be?

I loved all of the ambiguous elements to the story and the author did a great job of keeping you guessing. For most of the present day storyline you don't know what's real and what might be in the author's head. I thought the bits spent working on the film adaptation were interesting and very believable, but the scenes where we followed Penelope as she tried to fit into LA life were a bit redundant and slowed the story down for me.

I I did really enjoy the book within a book and the inclusion of excerpts from American Mermaid was really a highlight for me. While Penelope's storyline may have dragged in places I loved following Sylvia the mermaid's story.

Thank you to Doubleday and NetGalley for a review copy.

<b>This story within a story is playful and satirical while providing deep issues to contemplate. It's different and captivating and silly and sobering.</b>

<blockquote><b>How could we be readers, how could we be lovers of the impossible and the imagined, and not want to swell up with a new character, pull it onto land from a sea we made, and trick it by disappearing behind our hands?</blockquote></b>

I've been so very excited for this book for ages, and I'm glad to finally be diving in! (See what I did there?)

Penelope Schleeman is an English teacher struggling to make ends meet when her feminist novel <i>American Mermaid</i> becomes a bestseller. Penny is hooked on the promise of a big payday and leaves her teaching position in Connecticut to move to Los Angeles and turn her novel into a script.

<blockquote><b>There is nothing mythological about this: Have you ever seen a mother spring up from a table when her child, two floors above, has a fall? Mothers move in the dark at night, while men fumble for the lights.</blockquote></b>

But others' visions for the story involve her eco-warrior main character morphing into a teen beauty wearing a clamshell bra, wiping away her complex hero's dark motivations, and erasing much of what makes the story worth telling.

Then mysterious threats and unexplained feminist changes begin appearing within the script, aimed at the writers who know how to make a shallow, profitable movie--but who are picking apart what made her novel sing in the first place.

Penny begins to suspect that she has unleashed a power within her story that somehow allows her mermaid character Sylvia to manipulate the real world. Even the posed explanations don't fully hold water (I'm sorry, but I can't stop the puns), making the reader wonder about the nature of multiple mysterious occurrences.

<blockquote><b>"You have to be like your namesake."
"Penelope Gruber, my mom's best friend from growing up? I should be an eye doctor outside of Tampa?"
"No, the original Penelope. From the Odyssey. Who undoes her own tapestry every night. Never finishes it. The men never get to possess her."</blockquote></b>
This story within a story echoes back and forth with linking elements including explorations of power, femininity, and the weight of perception. The Penny-in-Los-Angeles storyline offers some hilarious (and often cringey) peeks at the world of movie-making as the script writers aim to ruthlessly distill the story to cinematic visuals rather than a tale buoyed (I know, I know) by substance and reflection.

The excerpts from the book within a book of <i>American Mermaid</i> show glimpses of the novel that is the basis for Penny's trajectory--while digging into themes of climate change, greed, and dangerous assumptions about ability and motivation. The story culminates in tragedy or triumph, depending on your point of view.

<blockquote><b>"Why does she have to be unconscious when she goes underwater? Why don't we get access to that? Can't a woman retain her clearheadedness even when she's doing battle?"</blockquote></b>

<i>American Mermaid</i> is playful, yet there's a lot of meat on the bones of the often satiric story to dig into. It made me laugh and also made me think. (The imaginary blurbs in the Epilogue purely made me laugh--they're so disturbingly plausible and silly.) This is weird and wonderful, and I hope Langbein has more books in the works.

I received an electronic version of this title, published March 21, courtesy of NetGalley and Doubleday.

I am a big fan of magical realism, so I was thrilled to receive an Advanced Readers Copy of American Mermaid. I was initially thrown off by the bizarre inner dialogue of the narrator and main character, Penelope. It felt like such a chaotic stream of consciousness that I almost stopped reading at about 30%. However, the story within the story (Penelope’s novel, American Mermaid), grabbed my attention enough to finish this book. Needless to say, I enjoyed the chapters that included snippets of American Mermaid more than the actual story. I’m glad I stuck with this one, because I LOVED the ending and I am still thinking about it!

3.5/5 (rounded up to 4 on Goodreads)

Thank you NetGalley and Doubleday Books for the ARC!

American Mermaid is such a unique read that follows an English teacher turned writer after her first novel explodes into becoming a bestseller. When Penelope gets the chance to move to LA to turn her novel into a film, she jumps at the opportunity with seemingly mixed results.

This story is a book within a book, and while the storyline is a bit unusual and different, the author has written it so well that you can't help but be captivated in the quirkiness of it all.

You should read this if you like:
•Debut novels
•Women MCs
•Multiple genres
•Feminist themes

Thank you to Doubleday and Netgalley for the digital copy for my review.

🧜‍♀️BOOK REVIEW🧜‍♀️

American Mermaid - Julia Langbein
Rating: 4/5 ⭐️

“A brilliantly funny debut novel that follows a writer lured to Los Angeles to adapt her feminist mermaid novel into a big-budget action film, who believes her heroine has come to life to take revenge for Hollywood’s violations.”

What a weird, wonderful, cerebral book! So much of the reading I do is, honestly, kind of mindless as an escape. Well this was definitely not that! It definitely gave off Honors Contemporary Lit course vibes - in the best way!

This is an incredibly funny, thought provoking book about the absurdity of the media, feminism, art, belonging and selling out. A lot of the themes shouldn’t work well together but absolutely do.

The book-within-a-book concept is generally not a favorite for me but worked so well in this. I definitely found myself rooting for Penny and Sylvia and have honestly never read anything quite like it.

Can’t wait for more from Julia Langbein! This is ✨out now!✨

Unfortunately, American Mermaid just didn't work for me. It was one of those book within a book stories and I usually like those, but fictionalized "mermaid tale" I didn't care for right from the start. Then, by the middle of the book the main story was annoying me, too. This might have been a good one to DNF, but I soldiered on. I won't be reviewing it anywhere but here.

I could not get into this book. Others seem to love it. I would suggest reading a sample before deciding if it's for you or not. I didn't have the option to read a sample and it was not at all what I thought it would be from the description.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.