14/09/2018
4.5
The ending was a bit of a cop-out but the rest of this was phenomenal and honestly, we don't deserve it.

Tags: deaf rep, f/f romance, dark sirens, science

YOU CAN FIND THIS REVIEW AND OTHERS ON MY BLOG

★★★★☆

I don’t write reviews often (though, I’ve been working on changing that lately), and it’s especially rare for me to review a book that wasn’t an arc or a review copy from a publisher, so I think that’s a testament to how much I want you guys to go out and read this book!

This book is fantastic! It’s full of horror, sirens and representation for minority groups we don’t get to read about often. Aka. there’s an Autistic character and deaf characters! It’s a lot of fun if you can believe that, and now we finally have a book that doesn’t do Sirens dirty, Mira Grant leaves nothing out! You should not sleep on this book!

“People were strange. People were also wonderful.”

I’m going to bullet point everything I love about this before I gush, because I have a lot of feelings:

Creative, Intense, Atmospheric
Great writing
Compelling plot
Wonderful love story – slightly slow burn
Great representation – Social anxiety, Autism, Deafness
Actually well-written Sirens – hella scary
Flawed characters – no one is inherently good
Fantastic audiobook
The plot + writing really draw you in! Because of this, the book looks longer than it feels.

THE ROMANCE

I’ll be honest the draw of Sirens and a wonderful F/F romance is what drew me to read this book. It also helped that Mira Grant is a pen name for Seanan McGuire, the author of one of my favourite series, the Wayward Children series.

I won’t go on about it forever, but the romance in this book is, I think why a lot of people will read this one so I’m going to talk about it. No spoilers but there is a wonderful and cute (but slow) romance between two women (bisexual and lesbian rep) and I love it. The MC’s love interest is cute af and also Autistic, and here’s the kicker – the mc does not give a sh*t. I love it. She doesn’t even blink an eye and I really appreciated that because usually it’s a big deal in writing, when it doesn’t always need to be.

How I remember it:

“Hi *is cute and awkward af* can I interview yo-“
“No.”
WE STAN TWO BEAUTIFUL LADIES. THIS IS REAL LOVE.

SIRENS & A+ WRITING = UNPUTDOWNABLE

This book is so so dark but, that’s what makes it so good! The Sirens are not played down or sugar-coated and that’s probably what I loved most about this book. Usually, when you read about Mermaids or Sirens you get books like To Kill A Kingdom where they’re really romanticised. Well, you won’t make that mistake with this book.

They’re totally badass and scary – combined with the beautiful writing style, you really get the feeling that if you came up against them in real life, you wouldn’t survive.

“The seas did not forgive, and they did not welcome their wayward children home.”

^^I’m dying at this quote, honestly

REPRESENTATION

Autism & Lesbian – Olivia
Bisexual – Tory
Heather & Holly – Deaf (they use ASL)
Mr Blackwell – Physical disability that affects his ability to walk

This book is chock full of representation, and is a wonderful model for how other books should be written, in terms of diversity! It has characters from all over the world and of all different ethnicities, it also has deaf characters (at least 4 characters who know ASL) and a love interest with Autism. None of this is used as a plot point in the story and it’s all treated as normal, which is honestly so refreshing to read about!

There is also another character in this book with a physical disability that makes it difficult for him to walk and I just wanted to mention him here because i haven’t seen him mentioned much in other reviews. We don’t see much of him throughout the novel, but I really enjoyed him in the novel because he is a really complex character (like most of the characters in the novel) and isn’t defined by his disability.

Also, can I just take a moment to scream about deaf characters who are actually represented well??? I legit cried guys, this made me so happy.


Okay, I’m done thank you.

“It was beautiful, in its own terrible way.
So many monsters are.”

My only real issue with this book was the ending, but that’s a minor fault and I get the feeling there’s going to be a sequel so it’s okay! There’s been no wind of a sequel so I put this down as a standalone, but I would definitely love to continue. I loved this book and found the creatures to be really interesting, though this definitely still works as a standalone if that’s what you’re into!

TW: Social Anxiety, Murder, Loss, Horror, Animal deaths, Minor body horror, Physical disability