As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here.

About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed.

On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). An arch tone and a this-is-good-for-you air might irritate an alert reader, but others might just take the fantasy for what it's worth and enjoy. The Capri is bulldozed, Claire and her grandparents move to Florida, and Raymond goes off to college, but that's not the end of the story, quite. She needs to get back to saltwater, but instead she falls in love with Raymond, and the girls contrive to give her one evening with him before they have to take her back to sea. In the old murky pool where Hailey learned to swim, they find a mermaid named Aquamarine, blue and opalescent and surly as heck.

They spend their days at the decrepit Capri Beach Club, which has fallen on hard times and has only Raymond, the snack shop clerk, to keep them in lemonade. But now Claire is moving from next door to Florida, and the girls have only the summer together. Twelve-year-olds Hailey and Claire have been best friends since they were born.

A gossamer fable written by an adult author who illustrates some of the pitfalls awaiting those unused to writing for young people.

Aquamarine by alice hoffman