人魚紀

by Wei-Jing Lee, 李維菁

女孩叫夏天，男人叫東尼，
他們並不相愛。
她看他跳舞，相信那舞裡有她想要的靈魂，
她把自己投入這需要雙人信任的舞蹈，忍受寂寞艱難，
成就一段觸動人們真心的童話。

從來就不是為了愛情而來，
是為了困惑，為了靈魂，為了不朽。

我常想，人魚若不想死，
不想走回海裡變成泡沫，消失在陽光乍升的海天交接之際，會去哪？
我若是人魚，會選擇反方向，
離開海邊，走回陸地，走進人類居住的城市，
用腿上新生出的兩隻腳，學會走路，穩穩地走路，
學習人類的生活，去過新的未知的日子。
在陸上住得太寂寞的話，就學跳舞…

別人的舞場在台上，她的舞場，在愛情在生活在獨自一人的空房裡；
別人從鏡子望見美麗的自己，她看見的，是孤單是困惑是傷痕與難堪。
然而樂音響起，她的舞步總是堅定，彷彿是人魚離海，忍耐著痛楚，一生練習著愛與不愛的從容姿態。

關於本書：
珍愛跳舞的夏天，與熱誠認真的國標舞老師東尼、耀眼並具明星光彩的舞者光希、天份高卻想過平凡生活的女孩子恩、驕縱的舞伴又林和貌合神離的美心夫妻…他們在台北城市兀自發光，從相遇、相知到分離，交織出一段段熾燦絢爛的故事。

創作這部小說的終景，李維菁說：「最重要的是，無論人魚或舞者，都處在一種想要與他者結合，想要達到更大夢想中活著的狀態。」從《我是許涼涼》、《老派約會之必要》、《生活是甜蜜》到《有型的豬小姐》，李維菁在小說、散文、詩句之間如魚穿梭，以聰穎透徹的文字撫慰每一顆青春易碎的心，讓每個人讀起她的文字，都彷彿讀到自己。

關於插畫設計：
以「女孩細心捧著映照出海底世界的鏡子」為概念，呈現李維菁筆下虛實相映的世界。

封面上的女孩，可以是嚮往人魚單純自由的舞者，
也可以是離海而生用雙腳展開新生活的美人魚，
將世人未見的美麗雙手奉上，輕聲說：
「你看，人魚潛身大海，孑然一身也是幸福的；
而我能跳心愛的舞，在人世的絢爛流光中奔游，就是我自己的幸福。」

翻開第一頁，女孩的鏡中倒影，從繽紛的海底世界變成一雙舞鞋，
那是她心心念念的至寶，在陸上絕美綻放的利器。

讀末，在封底望進人人各自描繪的鏡中世界，你會更明白，
這一生是甜蜜是跌宕是平淡或浪潮，都是每個人自己才能綻放，獨一無二的美麗。

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook, Adult, International

232 pages, Paperback

First published May 29, 2019

Reviews

[Afi (WhatAfiReads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this! RTC soon :)

Edit : 28/9/2022

The Mermaid's Tale is a depressing yet hopeful tale of Summer and her hopes and dreams in becoming a dancer. At the age of 30, she was in between jobs, and in no way of hopes to continue her path in dancing again. However, this tale, in its monotonous way, had struck a chord within me. It was melancholic and depressing, yet , the relatability of the characters and the mid-life crisis that she had going on along with her traumatic past that shaped her as the adult that she is, made the book just one that I will remember for a very long time.

Personal Ratings : 4🌟

"The association of water and dancing is more than implicit in the Chinese vocabulary of dance, for instance the fact that a dance floor is literally a 'dance pool' (wuchi).

What does water have to do with freedom? It's the closes most of us get to weightlessness; in water, buoyancy frees us from the pull of gravity, which brings us all crashing down sooner or later on land."

This was the last book written by the author before she died of cancer, and in some ways, based on the translators note, the note of melancholy comes from the darkest days of her life, hence why the novel, albeit short, is packed with so much emotions. Summer has not had it easy when she was younger and the issues of body dysphoria comes in every part of her life as her mother gaslights her extremely on her body weight. I particularly LOATHED her mother in here, and I hated how she had made Summer doubt herself and had to somewhat survive on her own. The role of parents and especially the generational trauma that is inflicted in Asian Families had been shown in this book, which led to their children growing up becoming adults that may or may not have some midlife-crisis crashing down at a phase of their life. There is a fine line between tough love and inflicting trauma on your child, and Summer is an example of an adult who was traumatized growing up to a point that she finds herself hard to love or even appreciate what she loves.

I honestly appreciate the dancing elements in this book. Whilst I'm no dancer, I've enjoyed watching and appreciating the art, therefore, the explanations of the author for the art is not only beautiful but it has its own sort of flair. Dancing for Summer is both a blessing and a curse, and the inner conflict that she had with these feelings makes the story one that makes you smile at some parts but also showing behind the scenes on the life of a professional dancer. The author had also frequently used metaphors on the art of dancing to intimacy, relationships and the exploration of sexuality. There's a certain subtleness in her writing that makes this book both a read that makes me sad but also makes me happy at the same time.

An intriguing read and one that I had finished in one seating. There is a certain extent where reality and metaphors collides in the book, but it also makes a read that is worthwhile to pick up.

Biggest thanks to Pansing (@definitelybooks) for this copy!

[Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't read much novels around dancing. Was a good well written story but my brain have major brain fart and can't come up with more to say

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 ⭐️ Een roman over ballroomdancing klinkt leuk, maar dit was het niet helemaal. Te onsamenhangend. De hoofdpersoon bleef net te vlak. Er zit goede thematiek in - gender, seksualiteit, grenzen aangeven, trauma’s - maar alles komt niet écht uit de verf. Jammer. Het zeemeerminjasje is ook erg dun in dit boek en laat je underwhelmed achter.

[Kate (Reading Through Infinity)]

Don't let the title deceive you, this isn't about mermaids at all. The story follows Summer, a young woman in her 30s, who loves dancing. Summer's issue is that she started too late to become a professional dancer, but enjoys dancing too much for it to be a casual hobby, which leaves her in limbo, trying to decide where to go with her passion, and searching for the perfect partner.

The book has a melancholic feel to it, which becomes even more prominent when you consider that this was the author's last novel before she died of cancer. Lee seems to ask us if there's any point in practicing a hobby or passion so diligently if the end result isn't becoming a professional/expert at it? To me, the answer is always yes (because hobbies enrich our lives in so many ways), but I can see how the main character struggles with feelings of emptiness and inadequacy because of her hobby. Would she, then, be happier if she just stopped altogether? This is one of the main questions of the novel, and it's especially poignant when we consider the people around her who (the men in particular) are often pretty horrible and thoughtless.

Overall, this is a thoughtful character study and a book that asks: what do we do when faced with mediocrity, after being socialised into thinking that we have to achieve the highest standards?

[Jessica | JSxReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

~thank you to the publisher Simon and Schuster UK, Scribner UK and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review ~

'It's a poignant metaphor, but birds in cages had always looked bored to me. Why would girls do unto the birds as society has done unto them?'

Once in a while, I step out from reading my usual genres and chance something new, and the gem that is 'The Mermaid's Tale' reminds of me of why I love to do this. I'm in awe of how much this tale was able to encompass in such a short period of time (clocking in at less than 200 pages, a fairly quick read) and how deeply some of the passages/Summer's thoughts resonated with me.
A distinctively magical tale that touches upon loneliness, women's agency of self and their bodies, and the journey towards self-discovery through the lens of the dance world.

Eagerly anticipating publication so I can get my hands on a physical copy and annotate it properly, such a beautifully written (and translated!) story that I'm sure I will return to time and time again.

4.5☆

[Nina ( picturetalk321 ) · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable book of the kind I like: an unprepossessing odd main character (and not odd in an overt quirky, manic pixie way but quietly odd, misfitting) who leads a non-spectacular life and has one great obsession which is described in great detail. The obsession here is ballroom dancing, the setting is Taipei, the heroine is introverted, humble, had a truly awful childhood with an awful mother but not much is made of this (neither does she tearfully reconcile or rise above it or struggle fruitlessly). There are strong hints throughout that she is on the asexual spectrum as she dislikes being touched and values ballroom dancing for the intimacy it affords with another body that is not sexually tainted. A pity that heteroromance does win out - while it has some sweet aspects, this was for me the weakest part of the tale.

I also appreciated how this is not a story of triumph over adversity nor is it one of "work hard, dedicate yourself to your passion and you will succeed." The MC does the former two but never achieves the latter.

Much space is given to the translator who gets a whole preface to himself. The reason: the author sadly died after having submitted her manuscript so both the Chinese original and the English translation were published posthumously. I am in two minds here. One: translators are co-creators and it would doubtless be interesting to read more of their thoughts and musings in every translated book. Two: it did rather seem as if the translator was elbowing his way into the limelight with the author not being around. Perhaps a shorter afterword would have been more appropriate. Also I do not care for translations that cater too much to the (perceived) target culture, eg by changing Chinese names to "Summer" or "Donny".

I have now read a book from Taiwan to add to my book world tour.

[Otone · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps it was the translation, but I found this rather aimlessly written - sometimes it read even like a manual for amateur ballroom dancing, and sometimes just a few strung together thoughts on the leading/following aspect of ballroom. It didn’t delve into gender roles as much as I was hoping, nor did it go further into mermaids beyond one short passage. Is it also just me that, reading this edition, I was rather surprised to find there wasn’t a blank page at the end of the book (going straight from the last page to the back of the printed flap)? I felt a bit like it robbed me of a moment’s closure, the author’s pen setting down on the desk, and I didn’t know I felt that strongly about it until I saw it.

[junggy chiang · Rating 5 out of 5]

先是節制且精準地選擇比喻，然後以誠實、果敢、堅韌和脆弱並存的姿態，將舞蹈與人魚的比喻推展得淋漓盡致。雙人舞的先天限制，人魚的童話，人與魚之間的差異與戀慕。尋求舞伴和找尋重心的過程，真的讓我很能共感。一段關係常常陷於絕對的依賴與保護，可是事實上你必須要擁有自己的重心，他也必須要擁有，才能平衡，才能曖昧，才能有性與愛。

非常親民好看的一部作品，印象最深刻的段落有二，首先為尋找重心以及在舞蹈中保有自我重心以能成就曼妙雙人舞的辯證，非常精彩且精巧。再者則是敘事者夏天與男友大維的關係，她從旁默默觀察這個每週末帶她去海邊的男孩，瞭解平凡生活的美好，以及品味生活的必要。週四下午的那段太美了，我一直想要成為的人，一直想要擁有的生活，李維菁寫出來了。

會想要送喜歡的人這本書。

[Tan Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

故事看似直接简单，文笔叙述得浅显易懂，但却不费吹灰之力将奇幻写实两样风牛马不相及的元素顺畅结合起来，以舞蹈界背景，阐述社会体制人际关系领域里人性的自我定义对比群体意识的哲理性复杂互动，大赞大推！

[Val Asker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I’ve read by an author from Taiwan and it was my April subscription book. I am enjoying the opportunity to discover books from different parts of the world - books that I probably would not have come across otherwise. The Mermaid’s Tale was a delight to read from start to finish. At the beginning of the book Summer is in her early 30s and decides to take up ballroom dancing. It soon becomes apparent that she excels as a dancer, but she has started too late to be anything other than a very talented amateur. However she needs a partner in order to participate. The Mermaid’s Tale is the story of her search for that partner.

This book is very much about partners or one to one relationships. Ballroom dancing, especially the Latin dances requires a physical closeness and intimacy between the couple that can lead to them becoming romantically involved, or cause problems if they don’t get on with each other. Summer had had a problematic relationship with her parents with her father keeping his distance and her mother constantly criticising her and making her feel ashamed of her body. What is it with Asian mothers? I was reminded of the mother/daughter relationships in both ‘Idol, Burning’ and ‘Concerning my Daughter’.

Whilst observing other bickering students in the dance club and thinking about her own relationships, Summer concludes that ‘pair relationships ..... tend towards cruelty and violence’. Summer is conflicted - she loves having a dancer’s body and works hard to become more supple and strong, yet she fears her own sexuality. Hence the title of the book, likening herself to a mermaid, wishing to replace her lower body with a tail - although of course she needs legs to dance.

Summer is a very likeable heroine who by the end of the book has come to accept and value herself as an individual rather than a dancer without a partner. She can be a person in her own right without needing a man to take the lead as happens in ballroom dancing. ‘I failed to become a dancer, but I did become a woman’.

I enjoyed this as a book about ballroom dancing but there was so much more to it. Dancing gave Summer a purpose and helped her get over upsetting events in her past. She was no longer ‘a bubble drifting along in my own tiny corner of a vast ocean’ - she was now a participant rather than an observer. The people she encounters along the way like fellow dancer Meixin and Donny the tutor who is himself searching for a partner to fulfil his lifelong dream of competing in Blackpool all play their part in Summer’s journey. This was a well written and ultimately uplifting story. What a shame that the author died so young.

[Ocean G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting character study. At least I believe it was. But it's just as likely that I missed the point.

Summer is almost obsessed with ballroom dancing, despite knowing she started it too late to become a real champion. This book taught me more about ballroom dancing than I ever thought I wanted to know. Throughout the story, we learn of her partner(s), other dance partners and their fate, as well as her instructor (and his fate).

The story is all the more poignant once you realize the author died of cancer shortly after having finished writing it.


https://4201mass.blogspot.com/

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟

‘You’re wrong there, Summer. You’re overanalysing. You’re making dance a lot more complicated than it needs to be. You’re trying to dance rumba with your brain. No wonder you find it hard. It’s just walking down the street, girl, that’s it. You have to forget the idea of dancing. All dancing is walking down the street, in this really smooth, fluid, elaborate way, walking with your head held high.

That’s all we really need in our lives, Summer, to walk beautifully. That’s all there is.’

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really odd slice of life story.
A lot of themes and topics came up in this short read, like the patriarchal standards in dance (and life), the pressure of being a woman needing to find a partner to fit in, and how sex is just not the same for everybody. I like how the book was written and how the reader is taken along for Summers' stream of consciousness, where we jump from one topic to the next in odd succession.

[Introvert Insane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was short but surprisingly visceral. On how dancing and coming of age is intertwined perfectly, representing the MC's experience. It's surprisingly, real, heartbreaking but also ends on a somewhat optimistic note. And that final line, hits me harder than I expected.
"That's all we really need in our lives, Summer, to walk beautifully. That's all there is."

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this one, especially the beautiful analogies between dancing, love and being a woman in this strange world we live in. The overall pace of the book was a little bit too slow for me personally, but that fact also made it a very relaxing read. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Emma Darcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

More of a character study than a plot per say. People say some really brutal stuff to each other in this like it's nothing, and then at the end, no one gets what they wanted 🤷‍♀️

[phaedri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanna read more books about dance in the future 😻😻
MC was also very relatable. Great anti-hero.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
Left me feeling underwhelm.

[Marta · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 no era lo que me esperaba

[maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.75 stars)

Starting with one of my favourite quotes to ever exist now:

“Lately I’ve been collecting memories and trying to string them together, like pearls on a necklace. They often don’t seem significant at first, but if I think of something it might be a clue to one of the many riddles of my adult life. Is it better to unravel these mysteries? Maybe not. But on the whole I think it is good to understand. Understanding doesn’t necessarily bring happiness; it might leave you deeper in sorrow. But at least now I can see that sorrow isn’t just in me, it’s in my family. Maybe it’s in the human condition, in the blooming and withering in a person’s life.

It saddens me to realise that. But having reached the realisation, having made it this far in life, something tense inside has finally relaxed a bit, and loosened up. I hope my cousin feels the same way”

Short review:

God this book is so good, it’s criminal how badly I want to write an essay about this book.

Long review:

Firstly, there is no plot to this book, barely any plot so if you like that, you won’t like this. The tone of the novel is a blunt, forthcoming voice, like the main character is just expressing her thoughts without much care about what’s right or wrong or just or unjust, but expressing the way things are, the truth of how she experiences the world. This can make the book tonally a bit gruff and indelicate (autistic-coded??) but I personally think it put the thought-provoking moments of the book in an interesting perspective. As jarring as it was when starting the novel, I only grew to love Summer’s narrative voice and appreciate her perspective.

Summer’s bluntness makes her prone to wondering about the structure of the rules around her, why things are the way they are, and why people act the way they do (autistic-coded?? pt.2). Her wonderings rarely have answers but they always ask interesting questions, it's almost whimsical and dreamy without all the softness I personally associate with that tone typically.

Chapter 3’s focus on her relationship with her mother, her body, and the concept of womanhood was my personal favourite. This quote is my absolute favourite in the whole book and a great showcase of how the tone of this novel aids it in presenting the conversations it's having about those topics:
“If only my mum had remained a girl for ever, without ever having to grow up. The same goes for me. Maybe the world would be a happier place if none of us ever developed secondary sexual characteristics and the ability to reproduce. In that kind of pre-pubescent world, my mum would have been happy, I’d have been happy. Who knows? I might even have been loved.”

The only reason this a full 5 stars is because I felt like the ending was a tad unsatisfying, almost incomplete. I don’t necessarily think the story should have been longer, but I felt like the last couple of chapters didn’t wrap up the story satisfactorily enough for me personally. But the journey of this story is without a doubt more than worth the ending! This is definitely the type of story where the journey you go on with the character and the thoughts explored are a lot more important than the narrative. I loved this!

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

With thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to rate this story higher but something held me back… it might be the narration itself. The narrator (Summer) shares enough and yet it turns out the distance from which she is talking about the time she danced almost all the time is further than it appears. Summer is not particularly sexual, this is part of the mermaid reference. Another is the beautiful costumes the ballroom dancers wear. The feeling out of place in society is another.

The brevity is a definite strength of the style and the focus on Latin ballroom dancing is both rare and well thought through with fun parallels to jianghu (wuxia). I was definitely more like her friend Princess in that I didn’t mind so much - I was improving at one stage, honest! - but you get away with it in social swing dancing. The choreography of ballroom terrified me but I can understand Summer’s desire to be good, and to find a partner.

The novel starts with a demand for rent and then blends into dancing, family moments, the anecdotal histories of people Summer becomes close to (or remains distant from) in dancing, alighting on what happens in the end without being climatic or an epilogue, yet it works. Parts of Taiwanese history appear. Comments on society or presentations of behaviour within society are more common - two cross-dressers, abusive relationships and observations on partnerships (romantic and dance) are well painted.

The novel is low-key and the thing I’ll probably remember most is the dependence or independence of people simultaneous to their desire for partnership or connection of some kind. There is misery mixed up with the everyday as in life, without over-focusing on any one character appearing - even Donny, her teacher who she understands most perhaps. I probably understand Summer after having read this but I don’t think I know her. The trick is to walk beautifully and not overthink it. Of course there’s always more to it than that. Of course there’s always more to it than that and the rigidity of gender roles comes through too and how fake they can be.

[jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her early 30s, Summer lives alone, jobless, with little material wants. Her only passion is ballroom dancing. She is in an awkward position: she started too late to be competition-worthy, yet takes dancing too seriously to be a pastime.

This book relates the rules of dancing with the rules of life. Summer's solitary existence is a major obstacle to participation as you need a partner in the ballroom. In dancing, the ironclad rule is "men lead, women follow", we saw women who are more capable than men struggle to function together.

Originally written by a Taiwanese author. English translation is available - The Mermaid's Tale by Lee Wei-jing.

Rating: 4 stars

[Emma Johns · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book quite dull.

The blurb says it’s like the vegetarian… it is not.

It really is just about a woman who is mediocre at dance, learning to dance.

I love dance. I’m passionate about dance. However, this book doesn’t portray the love of dance the character presumably has.

The characters feel very flat. There is a theme of the misogyny in dance, however it’s all the very obvious things most people would already know, and nothing is very surprising. I didn’t learn anything new, and I didn’t care about anyone in the book.

[Coral Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written. A hard read with feminist undertones about the role of gender within the world of competitive paired dance.

I felt set adrift by the ending - a bit empty. Perhaps this is a story that needs to be read more than once.

It should be noted that the author died after finishing the manuscript, and therefore, the translator couldn't consult with them directly about meaning and metaphors, which might be why it feels a bit loose to me.

[aoba · Rating 3 out of 5]

一則關於國標舞的故事。根據書中的說法，雙人舞有個重點，如果兩人都有足夠的基本功、站���自己的重心上，自然而然就能產生出纏綿緊密的互動感。然而，故事的主角不巧是一位苦尋不到理想舞伴的女生，再想起李維菁前作中眾多聰明但渴愛的女子們，不覺眉頭微微一皺，這是作者在生命接近終點時的幽微嘆息嗎？

在故事的最終，主角無法再跳舞了，但她並不哀傷失落，而是漂亮地走著路，「目光明朗，見過許多風景」。 哎希望實情也是這樣子的吧。謝謝李維菁的文字，也祝願你的靈魂此刻正漂亮的走在彩虹之上。

[Cath Y. (riso.allegro) · Rating 5 out of 5]

💃🏻 ballroom dance
💃🏻 patriarchal control of the body
💃🏻 gender norms & couple dynamics

*Thank you for the ARC Scribner UK and Simon&Schuster UK*

This quiet slow-burn of a novel follows the story of Summer, a Taiwanese woman who throws herself into learning Latin dance in her late thirties. As she learns, she observes the subtle dynamics between each couple, and befriends her instructor Donny, an ambitious gay dancer who often acts according to a gender-binary ‘code of gallantry’ that he has internalised.

The world of ballroom dance is a microcosm of heteropatriarchal society, full of gendered interactions and compelling everyone to look for a partner of the opposite sex. Male and female dancers perform clearcut gender roles both on and off the dance floor. The male partner is expected to lead, pay, protect, pamper; the female partner is treated like a prized possession. Not having a partner is the biggest fear, but the reality is that it is almost impossible to find someone suitable and keep them. Sometimes couples would get married to secure a dance partner for life. Love and attraction don’t always enter into the equation.

As Summer stumbles along in her search for a partner, she dives into stories of relationships sullied by patriarchal mentalities: a misogynist mother, a selfish ex, a cheating man who slut-shames his lover. In this context, Summer’s friendship with Donny is unique, as she tries to break through norms that govern male-female interactions and strive for equality and genuine connection. Learning to dance is also a journey to break free from female body shame that she has internalised since childhood, reconnect with her femininity and find her own centre of gravity.

I love how the translated prose is clean and precise like well-practised dance steps. The narrative is laced with fascinating details on dance technique, analyses of various dance champions’ style, and comments on costume design and hairstyle. I also love the passages that touch on recent Taiwanese history, such as the dance ban under martial law (1940s-1980s) and the Keelung Massacre in 1947.

📖 Quotes

‘Men lead, women follow? Sounds like a chauvinist dance to me,’ I complained.
‘Yea, but those are the rules,’ Donny said. ‘I have to follow them, too.’

Donny was like a model boyfriend… When I went to pick [a shrimp] up with my chopsticks, he told me to wait a bit, he was going to warm them in the pot before he’d let me eat. And he’d only let me eat if I’d let him feed me. When he did that he seemed less like a model boyfriend and more like a parody of machismo.

I got the sense that my mother despised my body, and that she wanted to control it, too. And what did my body mean to her? To her, my body meant my gender, and my gender signified sex.

Where do mermaids go if they don’t feel like rolling back into the water after a sunbathe on the beach […] I grew legs and proceeded with the resolute, plodding steps of someone who had to consciously learn to walk. […] I didn’t just grow legs, but the place in between them, too. There was a pond there, and a tunnel that nobody ever read about in that fairy tale.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The rumba, the cha-cha, and my favourite, the jive are supposed to portray heterosexual love but that can't be what you feel when you dance..."

The Mermaid's Tale looks at the world of ballroom dancing through the eyes of a single woman in her 30s, who is pursuing her dream to learn to dance. The protagonist, Summer observes details about the characters in the ballroom dancing world, her family, and the people from her neighbourhood. Her thoughts touch on the philosophies of Latin and ballroom dancing styles, the practice of exercise, and the gender dynamics that are enforced through the discipline. Summer experiences various difficulties trying to achieve the idealised concept of a (partnered) ballroom dancer that stem from systemic problems. Some readers may approach this as a simple metaphor for marriage and the problems of society relating to romantic partnership - it's much more than that.

The world of dance presented in the novel explores body autonomy, ambition, and how people define value. Lee Wei-Jing draws connections between hobbies and concepts of society and personal independence that I find very compelling. The images she draws are vivid and relatable - the characters and teaching methods will strike a familiar chord with people who have trained in ballroom dancing.

Summer, as a protagonist, is full of sharp observations on the challenges and systems of gendered society but she is by no means a perfect model. She is molded, at least in part, by her ambitions within ballroom dance which shows in her ageism, ableism, and rigid ideologies toward gender expression. Her contradictory ideas and actions bring realism to the character but may alienate some.

I would recommend this complex, fascinating novel to fans of stories like Convenience Store Woman, Breasts and Eggs, and Children of Paradise.

[Adhima Ratnaningtyas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mermaid Tale was a beautiful story about living a life by comparing it to the tale of The Little Mermaid that we’ve been knowing all along. The story centered around how Summer, in her age that no longer young, still hold upon her only desired hobby, dancing. From that one concept, we will be brought into her life, her dark memories, social stereotypes, feminism, and a lot other topics that were being discussed in this book.

I was really like how this book used the metaphor of dancing and combined it with the tale of The Little Mermaid to create such a beautiful story about how is it to actually live a life as a women in early thirties with so much pressured from the society. I love how everything happened within Summer’s dance class can be associated to how she responded to everything happened to her life. I also love how this book implicitly said that we are all mermaids that are still learning how to walk on our own feet and find our own way.

However, as I mentioned that this book dealt with a lot of topics, several topics were not really discussed enough, so it was just a bit let down for me because those topics has so much potential to be explored if only we got enough background stories.

Overall, this book was a really great short read if you were having some identity crisis, or just want to try a translated asian literature! 4 stars✨

[Daphne (Dookaholic) · Rating 4 out of 5]

La historia de Summer es una de sueños, de pasión por lo que te gusta, de saber que aunque no seas el mejor en algo, eso no implica que debas de dejar de hacerlo.

The Mermaid's Tale es una novela protagonizada por una bailarina treintañera no normativa y asiática, cuya pasión son los bailes de salón. Sabe que no triunfará nunca en ese mundo en el que "los hombres dirigen y las mujeres les siguen". En su búsqueda por encontrar la pareja de baile perfecta, también se enfrentará a su pasado más oscuro en el que se enraiz su disconformidad con su propia sexualidad.

Esta historia tiene momentos extremadamente duros y bastantes trigger warnings: una madre abusiva, slut shamming y suicidio. Y están representados de una manera bastante directa, así que aviso a navegantes de que si os afectan estos temas, igual este libro no es para vosotros.

Me ha encantado que se explore el mundo del baile. No solo a través de Summer, la prota, sino también a través de diferentes bailarinas que se encuentran en su mismo entorno y va conociendo a la largo de su trayectoria. Además de que Summer es una mujer que con treinta años todavía no tiene su vida hecha y sigue encontrándose a si misma. Rompe un poco con los estereotipos que se nos han marcado y normaliza necesitar más tiempo para encontrarse a una misma y tu dirección en la vida.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dancers, don't despair. You can start dancing at any time in your life, just don't go to competitive dancing - go to the social one instead. You don't need a permanent partner there, during the classes people rotate and dance with many different partners. If you decide to go competitive eventually, you will be exposed to a lot of people already and can form a good couple. I am speaking as someone who picked up dancing in mid 30s, stayed for way longer than the heroine, and yes, still dancing.

Well, about the book itself. I picked it up because of the paragraph above - I wanted to compare experiences. But they were not similar at all. However, I still liked the book. Its melancholy, its rhythm and even the juxtaposition of dancing and sex - all worked for me. I didn't like the heroine - she was snobbish and judgemental (how many times did she say "he wasn't even that good"?...) but she felt very real. We wouldn't be friends, but I could understand her.

The writing and the language are just beautiful. Put me in the right mood. And it's very cosmopolitan at the same time - the true story about dancing, it doesn't matter in what country and which part of the world it's happening, dancing is the same and it is something all dancers can relate to.