Wetherall's new novel, her debut, is Amphibian.
At Electric Lit she tagged seven books that "borrow from the toolbox of magic realism and horror to convey the experience of girlhood in all its delight and barbarity." One title on the list:
Chlorine by Jade SongRead about the other entries on the list.
Ren Yu is a mermaid. She tells you so on the first page. She doesn’t come from the tradition of red-haired shell-breasted singing mermaids; she is ripped, disinterested in humans, particularly men, and, by the climax of the book—she’s bloody. Ren narrates the story of her self-determined transformation starting from her life as a young competitive swimmer, so addicted to the water and the race that she licked the chlorine from her skin when she missed the pool. But as the pressure to win, and to prove herself by getting into an Ivy League college mounts, along with cruelties from her crew of fellow swimmers, she starts to pursue her longing to be a mermaid with a near holy embrace of physical pain.
--Marshal Zeringue