YA books, like everything else for teens, are subject to the whims of trends and fashion. Remember when they were all about vampires? Or all about magical boarding schools? Or magical boarding schools with vampires? Or hyper-violent anti-authoritarian post-apocalypses? Those trends are all in the past — and they've…

We recently talked to Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, who plays the main mermaid Syrena in the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. She told us about her mermaid history and what makes Syrena different from mermaids we've seen before.