Mermaids by Patty Dann

Rating: 4.5

What it's about:
"Mrs. Flax was happiest when she was leaving a place, but I wanted to stay put long enough to fall down crazy and hear the Word of God. I always called my mother Mrs. Flax."

So begins this extraordinary first novel about one wild year in the life of fourteen-year-old Charlotte Flax, when she and her sister Kate move with Mrs. Flax into a sleepy 1960's Massachusetts town. Mrs. Flax is a woman who wears polka-dot dresses and serves hors d'oeuvres for dinner every night, and Kate is a child who basically wants to be a fish.
And then there's Charlotte, who in Patty Dann's hands, is transformed into a young woman of infinite whim and variety. Charlotte's main ambition in life is to become a saint, preferably martyred, though she's Jewish. She's smitten with the shy young caretaker at the convent at the top of the hill. Dann has created a young girl who accepts the unkindness of the mad universe in which she's whirling and takes it on with a savage glee.

Charlotte Flax is like no one you have ever met--and someone you know very well.
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Mermaids is a coming-of-age novel that takes place in 1963-1964 and is centered around a somewhat different 14 year old named Charlotte. It follows a year in the life of Charlotte, her mother Mrs. Flax and her little sister Kate who practically lives in water. Mermaids is a fun book with quirky characters. Mrs. Flax moves the family around the country before they can barely get moved in. Kate is obsessed with swim meets and fish, her goal in life is to swim the English Channel. Then there is Charlotte, a girl who is just waiting (not so patiently) for divine intervention. She wants to be a saint, or at least a nun, even though she's Jewish. When the Flax family move to Massachusetts they move into a house right down the hill from a convent. Charlotte is thrilled.....surely she will hear the word of God now. She learns a lot about life and love in this small Massachusetts town, especially when she falls for Joe, the convent caretaker man.

For fans of the movie Mermaids, (me! me! me!) the movie followed the book almost exactly! While I was reading it was just like I was watching the movie in my head.