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A review by ashleerosereads
Son of the Siren by Kristina Elyse Butke
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
First of all, this is a very cute story. Lirien is the son of a mortal king and a siren, and after his father is lulled out to sea by Lirien’s siren mother, the king’s human wife (the Queen) makes Lirien sing his siren song to lure the king back. This backfires and forces the Queen to be enthralled by Lirien’s siren song, falling in love with him. She will do anything to make him love her back - going so far as to use a magical havoc stone. This causes Lirian’s half siblings to be turned into animals and fleeing from the castle. Lirian must set out to find his siblings, and help them shift back into their human bodies.
This is an easy YA read, filled with found family and coming of age themes. Great for a middle schoolers. My only gripe is it reads just like that - like it was made for middle grades. The pacing of the story was monotonous - whenever Lirien was faced with a problem, a supporting character would immediately be able to tell him what he needed to do and off they went. There wasn’t a lot of ebb and flow to the story, more just one thing after the other to build the plot and progress the story. I also wish more time was spent for Lirien to actually search for his siblings. Once they’re turned into animals, Nina (a snake) immediately slithers up Lirien’s arm and lives there for a majority of the novel. Sorin (a stag) and Sonalie (a swan) both run away. At one point Lirien gets the power to speak with his mind, so he mentally shouts for them to meet at the lake, and lo and behold they meet at said lake. I feel like we spent too much time developing smaller side plots (the reverie, killing the monster in the winter woods) that took up time that could have been spent searching for his siblings. Once he found them - that was it. I also think this story tried to jam in too many fantastical elements, and we sort of lost the initial premise of the sirens. There's the siren plotline, there's a magical wood with sections for each season, magic stones for wishing, siblings shape shifting, fae, elves - I think it stretched the story too thin and attributed to the "one thing after another" gripe I had mentioned earlier. I wish we stuck to one maybe 2 fantastical elements to give us more time to develop the plot and the relationships. This would've helped keep give time to Lirien actually spending time searching for his siblings and less fantasy filler.
All in all a quick, enjoyable, easy read.
Thank you to Booksprout, Oliver Heber Books, and Kristina Elyse Butke for the eARC.
This is an easy YA read, filled with found family and coming of age themes. Great for a middle schoolers. My only gripe is it reads just like that - like it was made for middle grades. The pacing of the story was monotonous - whenever Lirien was faced with a problem, a supporting character would immediately be able to tell him what he needed to do and off they went. There wasn’t a lot of ebb and flow to the story, more just one thing after the other to build the plot and progress the story. I also wish more time was spent for Lirien to actually search for his siblings. Once they’re turned into animals, Nina (a snake) immediately slithers up Lirien’s arm and lives there for a majority of the novel. Sorin (a stag) and Sonalie (a swan) both run away. At one point Lirien gets the power to speak with his mind, so he mentally shouts for them to meet at the lake, and lo and behold they meet at said lake. I feel like we spent too much time developing smaller side plots (the reverie, killing the monster in the winter woods) that took up time that could have been spent searching for his siblings. Once he found them - that was it. I also think this story tried to jam in too many fantastical elements, and we sort of lost the initial premise of the sirens. There's the siren plotline, there's a magical wood with sections for each season, magic stones for wishing, siblings shape shifting, fae, elves - I think it stretched the story too thin and attributed to the "one thing after another" gripe I had mentioned earlier. I wish we stuck to one maybe 2 fantastical elements to give us more time to develop the plot and the relationships. This would've helped keep give time to Lirien actually spending time searching for his siblings and less fantasy filler.
All in all a quick, enjoyable, easy read.
Thank you to Booksprout, Oliver Heber Books, and Kristina Elyse Butke for the eARC.