Mermaids Don T Wear Toe Boudreau: Summary

Real Mermaids Don’t Wear Toe Rings written by Helene Boudreau is about a typical thirteen year old girl named Jade. The day she gets her period she comes home and takes an Epsom salt bath but the unimaginable happens; her legs turn into a mermaid tail. Jades father explains to her that her mother was also a mermaid so she must be one as well. Which makes her mother’s death the previous summer even more confusing; Jade wondered how her mother could have drowned when she is a mermaid. Soon after she finds out her mother is still alive and has to figure out how to save her from the mermaids called Freshies that pulled her into the water in the first place. Jade also must keep the secret from her best friend and the guy she has a crush on. In the

Jades character is very basic. She’s a thirteen year old girl who’s self conscious of her body and she has a crush on the popular boy Luke. Also her friendship with her best friend is threatened by the popular girl Lainey who also likes Luke. Jade assumes that Luke likes the more popular Lainey but in reality he likes Jade she just doesn’t realize it. But in the end she realizes it was her all along and then Jade and Luke share a kiss. It honestly could be the ending of any movie the same basic character and plot has been used so many times. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but the book is not as unique and different as it seems the fact that Jades character is a mermaid is really the only different thing about her.

Stories are often told about

Jades character gets interpelated into society in a number of ways. The first time it happens is in the beginning when she runs into her dad at the mall and awkwardly must tell him that she got her period which leads to him buying a million different feminine hygiene products and leaving Jade embarrassed. When Jade tells the story to her friend Cori she responds “You…you had to go to the drugstore with your Dad?” More laughing. “That’s… the funniest thing…ever.”(page 70) It’s meant to be a joke because girls aren’t supposed to get their dads to buy feminine products they are supposed to ask their moms, guys in general in our society aren’t the ones who are “supposed” to be buying tampons. For example in the short story The Heroic Quest of Douglas Mcgawain, Douglas and his friend Rick are going out to get for soda for their girlfriends when Douglas’es girlfriend Tracy asks him to buy her tampons. His thoughts are what must guys would think in a similar situation “An electrical storm danced through my brain as it tried to make sense of those words. Oh my god. Tampons? Guys don’t buy tampons. We just don’t. Everybody knows that (pg.37).” But he accepts the challenge anyway, once Douglas finally finds the correct brand he goes to the checkout counter to find the cashier be believes will judge him the least. Once in line two men give him weird looks then laugh and blow him a kiss clearly making fun. But the