【A Male Friend Who Spins it Around】

When you think of mermaids,A Male Friend Who Spins it Around you probably think of The Little Mermaid's Ariel earnestly yearning to be "a part of your world." What you probably don'tthink of is a merman dragging himself along rocks and sand to a wagon so that he can be carried to a house on Venice Beach where he will have sex with a woman who is obsessed with love.

And yet, that's exactly what happens in Melissa Broder's new novel The Pisces.

SEE ALSO: Culinary delights: 6 times someone made love to food in a movie

The Piscesfollows Lucy, a student who has been working on her dissertation about Sappho for nine years with no sign of finishing. Lucy's world is turned upside down when she and her boyfriend break up and she learns that she has to finish her dissertation over the summer or she'll lose her school funding. Worried, Lucy's sister Annika invites Lucy to spend the summer living and dog-sitting in her house in Venice Beach where Lucy can get away from the stress of her program, work on her dissertation, go to therapy, and recover from her breakup. Reluctantly, Lucy goes, and everything seems normal. That is until she meets Theo, a man who she believes is an attractive swimmer, one night on the beach. But Theo has a few secrets of his own.

It's a big plot — a woman who falls in love with a merman and then has (very explicitly-written) sex with him — but somehow, that's not even the most shocking part of the novel.

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In The Pisces, Broder takes what could be, by any other writer, a sex romp, and turns it into a genre-expanding exploration of relationships, obsession, sex, and mental health that'll likely stick with readers long after they've flipped the last page. The book is gutturally uncomfortable, often depressing, and perhaps most surprisingly, sometimes relatable, as Lucy reflects on how she approaches love and why.

"I was totally taken out of my comfort zone with this book," says Mashable culture reporter Martha Tesema.

This week on the MashReads Podcast, we talk about Melissa Broder's book The Pisces. Join us as we talk about mermaids, how we approach protagonists who do bad things, the ways we talk about love and relationships, and more. Then, inspired by the book, we talk about other unexpected romances in literature.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Then, as always, we close the show with recommendations.

• Chloe recommends Motherboard's web-themed crossword puzzle "Solve The Internet." "It's really fun and they are a little bit easier than the New York Times crossword puzzles, so if you get stuck on the Wednesday puzzle like I do, turn to this one. It's so fun."

• Martha recommends the app Wordscapes, a word-based puzzle game. "I'm addicted to it!"

• MJ recommends "Queer Love In Color," a photo essay that ran in the New York Timesfor Pride Month that documents black queer couples. "It's just so beautiful. It has a beautiful message to it, the photos are gorgeous, and it's celebrating Pride and love, and you'll look at those photos and feel good."

Next week we are talking about what we're reading this summer. We hope you'll join us! And as always, be sure to follow MashReads on Facebook and Twitter if you want to keep up with even more of this year's biggest book news.

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