A Song to Take the World Apart by Zan Romanoff
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Goodreads Blurb: What if you could make someone love you back, just by singing to them? Fans of Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun and Leslye Walton’s The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender will be captivated by this contemporary love story with hints of magical realism.
Hanging out with Chris was supposed to make Lorelei’s life normal. He’s cooler, he’s older, and he’s in a band, which means he can teach her about the music that was forbidden in her house growing up. Her grandmother told her when she was little that she was never allowed to sing, but listening to someone else do it is probably harmless— right?
The more she listens, though, the more keenly she can feel her own voice locked up
in her throat, and how she longs to use it. And as she starts exploring the power her grandmother never wanted her to discover, influencing Chris and everyone around her, the foundations of Lorelei’s life start to crumble. There’s a reason the women in her family never want to talk about what their voices can do.
And a reason Lorelei can’t seem to stop herself from singing anyway.
Goodreads Review: Unfortunately this story was not a hit for me. The description pulled me in, and I thought that the idea of a teenaged Siren was very interesting and unique. However this book turned out to not be anything like I expected and not in a good way.
Overall this story is not bad, it’s decent, some people might even say good. But for me I just wanted more. The plot just ended up being so much smaller than I had hoped. I thought it would be about a teenaged girl coming to grips with a newly discovered Siren ability. I thought it would follow her adventures as she used her power for good, bad and all the grey in between.
Instead what I got was essentially her using her power on a boring dud of a boy that she had become obsessed with…although obsessed is probably too strong of a word. It wasn’t nearly as intriguing enough to warrant obsession…it was more….a young girl moaning about her first lust with the usual teenaged relationship drama except that she just so happens to be a Siren.
The moral quandaries in the book never managed to interest me because I just found myself not caring about any of the characters, so what did it matter if they all treated each other like shit?
Overall, good idea but bad execution. 2.5/5
Buy, Borrow or Bin Verdict: Bin
Note: I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
Satellite Mind 