baohua's Reviews > The Sirens

★☆☆☆☆ 1.5/5
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✎ (❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈) ༉ Note : This review will remain spoiler-free as it has not been published at the current date of my review.

The Sirens is my first time reading works from Emilia Hart, and may potentially be the last time I do as well. I had requested this ARC because the cover is absolutely gorgeous, the premise was intriguing, and I was very interested in knowing the story that would evolve. I unfortunately did not get any sort of satisfaction from this book like I had hoped and found myself really, really struggling to read this that I contemplated DNF'ing.

: ̗̀➛ My Review Rants

The writing for this book was strong. It was beautiful and I found myself pulled in by the writing, despite not really clicking with anything that I was actually reading about. I felt no attachment to the characters or the experiences their storylines followed. And the strong writing made the lack of an actual plot or development stand out all the more. I found myself constantly questioning or simply skimming through most things Lucy did or said.

The start of the book had an interesting prose, but the more I looked at it, the more questions I had about the holes surrounding it. We start The Sirens with Lucy waking up to find her hands around the neck of a man she had slept with and was forming an intimate relationship before he leaked her nude photos to his group chat of friends, and essentially the entire school. Sounds interesting until you look into it a bit more (because, like I always do, I overanalyze things more than I should). How did she get across campus to his dorm? How did she unlock his dormitory door and slip in unnoticed? How did neither he nor his roommates hear her get in and inside his room? How did no one on campus see this woman sleepwalking and think to stop her?

Putting that aside - Lucy is mortified by the fact that she woke up with her hands around his neck and she flees. Where to, you ask? Well of course, to her estranged sister's home thousands of miles away from her, a place she had never visited and only knew existed because her sister sent her a postcard with the address years prior. Only, she gets there, and no alarm bells go ringing in that head of hers when the front door is unlocked, her sister nowhere to be found, and she is still essentially on the run from a near murder attempt on her ex-fling.

This entire setup feels forced and has very little explanation because much like everything else in this book, they never circle back on this or elaborate on the how's, why's, or what-the-hell's. And instead of taking the opportunity to delve into all of these questions before, we are instead sat through a book of Lucy and this contrived mystery of eight missing men, her sister's disappearance, and the exile of Mary in the 1800s while waiting for the conclusions to be told point-blank to Lucy.

There was this build up and expectation that the characters had so much personality and life to them that they've lived and experienced, but I felt nothing for any of them. It felt so one-dimensional, and I couldn't for the life of me bring myself to care about anything.

I won't even touch on the student-teacher conversation in this book because that would make my review longer than I want to make it. Just know, it is awful.

: ̗̀➛ Final Thoughts

I give this book a solid 1.5/5 stars, and the only reason why it is not a complete 1 star is because I applaud the effort. There was clearly thought and effort to this book, it just didn't click for me or make me feel anything it wanted me to. I personally would not recommend this to anyone, but my taste is subjective and oftentimes all over the place, so don't hesitate to check it out on its official publication if you think it may be something more aligned with your interests.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review of this novel.