Monday Book Review: Skipping the Scales, by Pete Tarsi

Skipping the Scales, by Pete Tarsi
(Flipping the Scales, Book 2)
Published July 2017

About the Book:

Meredith, Marina, and Hailey's wildest dreams could be coming true.

Two weeks in the ocean changed Meredith's life and career goal. Now studying marine biology, she lands a summer internship at a local aquarium. Her aquatic intuition impresses her mentor, but how would the mermaids feel about holding fish captive in the name of science?

Marina has returned ashore to seek out her missing mother. A curious and cryptic painting leads to other clues, but the search through her mother's past reveals more questions than answers. Could her parents have left the ocean harboring a deep, dark secret?

Meanwhile, Hailey keeps Marina's tail safe and lives her lifelong dream to be a real mermaid. The experience is exhilarating, until the leader of the school suspects she is a human. If she gets caught, would it leave her friend forever marooned on land?

When second-guessing, mystery, and danger threaten to sink their dreams, will they skip out? Or will they work together and swim through the rough waters ahead?

My Take:

This second book in this delightful middle grade/young YA mermaid series continues the stories of Marina, Meredith, and their friends as they navigate mysteries both above and below the ocean's surface.

Marina is an orphaned orange tail mermaid in search of answers and her long lost mother, both of which she thinks she will find on dry land. Needing someone to guard her mermaid tail, she turns to the human friends she made the previous summer and finds a willing helper in Hailey, who has always dreamed of being a mermaid. Hailey's cousin Jill, and Jill's best friend Meredith, once again get roped into the adventures that ensue. After all, Meredith was the one who got to live as a mermaid the previous summer, which led her to pursue an internship in marine biology at the local aquarium.

Now Hailey can't wait for her turn exploring the undersea world.

But nothing is ever as easy as it seems, and there are more mysteries surrounding Marina's background than any of the girls could've imagined. Twists and turns are interlaced with tidbits of marine factoids as the story thickens both above and below the surface. Chapters alternate the action between the mers and the humans until the two stories collide... But I can't get into that without spoiling the story.

Pete Tarsi weaves an interesting tale, with all the girls skirting the edges of right and wrong and realizing things are never just black or white. There's a little bit of head hopping among the minor characters that I mention only because its on my pet peeve list, but otherwise this is a delightful, lighthearted story, perfect for any mermaid fans, or really any middle grade reader despite the ages of the main characters.

Grab a copy on AMAZON.