Didn't like this story. I did not ever see why Seamus liked/loved Grace. Not sure why anyone (except her mother and grandmother maybe) liked/loved Grainne. They were both self-centered people throughout the entire book. The book was boring after a while, with the mother/daughter/granddaughter same events/feelings happening over and over. The ending was too predictable. ( )

This is a test.

The Mermaids Singing is the story of three generations of women: Cliona who was born in Ireland on Inis Muruch though she left for Boston where she had her daughter Grace before she returned home and married; Grace who considers herself American and bitterly resents her mother for dragging her to the island; and Grainne, Grace's daughter, who is born on the island but taken to America by her mother until Grace dies of breast cancer when she returns to live with her grandmother.
Each woman is a product of her times and upbringing. Cliona works as a domestic, raising the children of a wealthy family in Boson, but wants her daughter to live the values of Catholicism and the stricter island life she was raised in. Grace is bitter, resenting her mother for her sternness in a time of women's' lib and sexual freedom. Grainne is young, angry that her mother is dying and not understanding why her father never came for her.
The writing is lovely, descriptive and capturing the rhythm of island life well. The characters are real, not always nice but true to themselves. The sea is always with them, and the singing of the mermaids in the waters around them fits the story well.
This was a truly enjoyable read. ( )

I would never have found this book if not for Katie and Mamie! So glad that I did. It's about mothers and daughters with most of it set in Ireland. This was a 4.5 star read for me. ( )

"She thinks how odd it is, that the strongest convictions, like possessions, can lose all meaning when you are dying. Everything that she thought she was about has slipped from her, and the things she never wanted are clinging to her memory like the seaweed in the crevices at her feet."

This one spoke to me. It's about mother-daughter relationships, and it is told from differing viewpoints of three generations of women - grandmother, mother and daughter. I think mother-daughter relationships are so complicated; we want our own opinions and lives and yet we cannot escape, if that is the right word, the lingering shadows of the women who have shaped us. For good or for ill, our mothers are a part of who we are. Their voices sound in our thoughts and in our hearts, and their choices have far reaching consequences.

"He saw my mother differently that I had. After all those years of believing my mother a cold, unforgiving woman, it frightened me to hear myself likened to her. For the first time I had the notion that my father had seen my real mother, and I her facade, rather than the other way around. Perhaps I had merely misunderstood her, just as I believed that Grace (her daughter) misunderstood me.

My father died twenty-three years after his wife, and yet it was my mother I grieved at his funeral. I grieved that I had not known her, that she had died before I was a mother, before I had a chance to understand that no one is the mother she plans to be."

This book does such a good job of dealing with all of those feelings and of dealing with grief. Here, the grandmother and the granddaughter are left to deal with the loss of the woman that ties them together. Grace has died of cancer and her teenage daughter is left to deal with truths that she does not understand - she did not know that she had a grandmother and a father back in Ireland. She has only ever known America, and the fiction that her mother had created for her. Now she must travel back to Ireland with her grandmother and learn a new truth.

"I sometimes think that God planned our lives all wrong. What's the use in learning the truth so long after the opportunity to use it has gone by?"

This novel is just so well done. Every character rings true and the heartbreak and redemption that can be found in opening yourself to another are apparent on every page. This is one I know that I will revisit, and I have to thank Katie for pointing it out to me. I might not have found it on my own. Thank you, Katie. ( )