The Girl with the Mermaid Hair by Delia Ephron

Sukie Jamieson is obsessed with her looks and herself. At every opportunity she gets she looks at herself in a spoon, or takes a “selfie” with her cell phone, all to make sure she looks the best. When her mother gives her a gorgeous antique mirror that used to belong to her grandmother, Sukie is ecstatic. She is so ecstatic that she forgets to adhere to her mother’s warning: “the mirror will be your best friend, but also your worst enemy.”

As Sukie’s year progresses she learns that the mirror shows not only who you are up close, but also who you are on the inside. With these revelations she sets off into the best and worst moments of her life, dealing with everything from family problems, to friendship problems, but most of all, who she really is as a person.  

To be honest I was not a fan of this book for the first half. I felt Sukie was really whiny and fake, caring to much about herself and not enough about those around her. Everything was really disconnected and confusing, but as soon as I hit the halfway mark the story got so much better. Sukie started to become aware of her surroundings and really turned into a real person. She even got my sympathy as she dealt with situations that anyone would find tough.

While the second half was definitely the better half, the ending really sealed the deal for me that this was actually a good book. There was tons of emotion and it was great to see things fall into place. The crazy characters became a little less crazy and you really got to see the amount Sukie had grown throughout the story. Throughout the book the writing was choppy, but you quickly got used to it. One thing I definitely have to give kudos to the author for his for her characterization of Sukie’s mom. Her mom was such a mean person that by the end of the book I really had an extreme dislike for her. For me, the fact that the author was able to make me feel this infuriated with a character is really neat as it means she made her real. In the end, this was a good story of friendship, loneliness and finding the true beauty in yourself that is sometimes very hard to find.