[image description: a graphic that says Book Riot #RiotRecs. Below is the cover of Mermaid In Chelsea Creek by Michelle Tea, and the text:

“Challenging the existing norms of Young Adult fiction, constrained by both publishers’ marketing departments and the often censorious voices of adult authority, is a tricky proposition. Fortunately, if anyone is up to the challenge, it’s Michelle Tea, professional badass.

Regular observers of YA fiction will know that, in recent years, mermaids were widely touted as the next big thing – even, god help us, ‘the new vampires’. Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is a napalm-strength antidote to such cliches, easily surpassing its would-be competitors in wit, bravery and sheer imagination. Tea’s deep sympathy with adolescent hopes and dreams never obscures the harsh realities of the adolescent experience. and while much of YA is escapist, Tea’s novel makes it very clear why young people might desire escape so badly.

Chelsea, Massachusetts is, as Tom Waits once put it, a town with no cheer, drawing hope desperately from a tangled local mythology. Local teenager Sophie Swankowski is, she discovers, a focal point in that mythology, and via a foul-mouthed Polish mermaid, she must prepare for the terrible responsibility it has forced upon her.

Both grimy reality and magical fantasy co-exist in Tea’s novel, and the compelling narrative she weaves demonstrates that neither can ever truly cancel the other out. The first part of a trilogy, the second volume cannot come fast enough. — Sean Bell”]