Pirates of the Caribbean watered down: All the cockiness, snark, double-dealing, and mythical activity, but with less swashbuckling and no likable characters.

I was particularly offended by how prejudiced this book is. "Men always behave this way." "It's surprising if a woman behave's this way." The only gay character is a violent threat and gets killed immediately after his sexual preference is revealed. The heroine describes herself as becoming the epitome of beauty when she sheds her sun-browned skin for white-as-pearl skin. On and on and on.

I kept WAITING for this book to make a massive twist, and for Alosa to be a TRANS girl, the only born-male siren ever! What a twist! The book kept using language that would have been phenomenal had the lead been trans, like her descriptions of being confidant in HERSELF but not in her BODY, and how she didn't like using her body to play to expectations... Would have been really cool if Alosa's obsession with clothing were about crafting herself and making herself feel good, instead of... ha ha prissy women love clothes... Riden's confusion over falling for Alosa would have been BRILLIANT if he had ascertained what her physiology was from his interrogations of her, and were struggling to reconcile his knowledge with his feelings, having never fallen for a trans-woman before. He would be real-time falling in love with the person for who she is. But... NOPE.... Riden is just confused because "Hey, women supposed to be soft, not stroooong."

WHICH... siiiiigh... let's get into that: Writers....ugh....once again... A Strong Female Lead is not about a girl who can kick and punch, or a girl who has no regard for others and a ton of swagger... A Strong Female Lead is measured by her empathy and endurance - she is strong for a reason, she fights for a reason. Wonder Woman is not strong because she can deflect a bullet; she is strong because she's willing to take an entire barrage of bullets to protect the innocent. What does Alosa stand for? What does she fight for? What does she overcome? Every "trial" she underwent in this book was pre-planned, a false narrative. Her sole motivation is "to please Daddy", and she never has to wrestle with what an abusive, horrible, underserving person her father is. She crews a ship full of women, she knows the seas are unsafe for most women, but the book spends next-to-no time with Alosa ACTUALLY in danger, and zero time with her training or defending the young women in her crew. We also know nothing about the women in her crew, where they came from, why Alosa would shelter them... They are fodder. We are purely meant to be impressed by the fact that All The Single Ladies have their own boat. Girl Power! Not.

I know this book is using the myth of sirens at its center, and sirens are predators... but I REALLY hated what this book had to say, about how a woman's strength is in her "feminine wiles", using her body to seduce and trick her way to what she wants. I don't feel empowered or inspired after reading this book. I feel ashamed. This is the worst version of women, what small-minded people expect of women: hot-headed, materialistic, stubborn, selfish, trollops.

And even if I ignored all the lame, outdated messages... this book still doesn't stand out much as a BOOK! It suffers from the "And then I did this. And then I did this. And then I did this" style of narrative. Very little room for artistry or memorable quotes. And since everything was pre-planned, or overcome easily by Alosa's cunning or magic or friends-in-high-places, there are no stakes. By the end of the book, the plot could easily be summed up as: Alosa willingly got in and out of a cage a couple of times, then unwillingly got stuffed in a different cage for a quick sec, then she went home, the end. Boring.

TL;DR? Overhyped, read something else.