A Song Below Water focuses on two girls of colour, one that is a Siren and the other is trying to figure out who and what she is, in a world where being different could mean that you could end up being an outcast.
When we meet Tavia, she’s frightened about the world finding out that she is a Siren. Being a Siren in Portland means that she could end up with a Siren collar and be silenced. Tavia’s dad denies that she is a Siren and insinuates that it is all in her head, which doesn’t help Tavia at all. At the start, I empathised with Tavia, as she struggles to fit in at school, fighting the uncontrollable Siren call urges, which she masks in choir. In comparison, Effie, Tavia’s foster sister and our second main character, embraces the weird and different in order to mask that she’s not sure what or who she is. Effie thrives as her character in the renaissance faire as Euphemia the Mer, wearing a fake mermaid tail and pretending to fall in love with another actor in the faire.
The storyline progresses slowly and at times, I feel like nothing much has happened. In other points, there is a lot of action and that was pretty satisfying. Whilst I could follow on for the majority of the story, there were a number of times where I found myself swimming in information dumps, which felt like a lot to take in, even though a lot of the information was vital to understand what was going on. It was also interesting to read in dual perspectives, as I could see what was going through Effie’s mind when things were happening, as well as Tavia’s perspective. These perspectives were rather different, and getting two views on issues that are affecting them definitely opened up my mind.
I loved the concept of this book being set in a contemporary fantasy world, where not only there are Sirens and mermaids, but also elokos and gargoyles. The variety made the world a lot more believable, rather than just having one type of mythical creature. I liked that most of these mythical creatures had a character in the story, rather than just be told ‘in our world there’s these things too’, which made the world much more three-dimensional in my head.
The characters that featured in the book were vividly described, and each definitely had their own voice that didn’t blend into the background. I really enjoyed reading about Mother Theo, who sounded like a paranoid lady that nearly sounded like she’d wear a tin-foil hat, whereas we had Tavia’s dad, who appeared constantly angry. I also found it a little too close to home that Tavia felt like the world (and more precisely the police) were watching her, given the current climate around the world where the police are currently knocking on the door, making sure that everyone is home and not outside. It was also refreshing that the romances within the book weren’t always in my face, as is the normal thing to have in many young adult books.
I’d recommend this book for those who want a fresh, different young adult contemporary fantasy that has major The Hate U Give meets Nineteen Eighty-Four vibes.
A Song Below Water is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers as of June 2nd 2020. I received a copy of the book from the publisher, Tor Teen, in exchange for an honest review.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Tavia is already at odds with the world, forced to keep her siren identity under wraps in a society that wants to keep her kind under lock and key. Never mind she’s also stuck in Portland, Oregon, a city with only a handful of black folk and even fewer of those with magical powers. At least she has her bestie Effie by her side as they tackle high school drama, family secrets, and unrequited crushes.
But everything changes in the aftermath of a siren murder trial that rocks the nation; the girls’ favorite Internet fashion icon reveals she’s also a siren, and the news rips through their community. Tensions escalate when Effie starts being haunted by demons from her past, and Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice during a police stop. No secret seems safe anymore—soon Portland won’t be either.
