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Goodreads blurb:
From award-winning author, Nghi Vo comes a dazzling new novel where immortality is just a casting call away.
It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic.
“No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers.” Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill—but she doesn’t care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid.
But in Luli’s world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes—even if that means becoming the monster herself.
Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Siren Queen Review:
The absolute hold on my emotions and daydreams this book has is unreal.
I loved Nghi Vo’s The Chosen and The Beautiful and Siren Queen is a phenomenal follow-up.
It’s hard to write a review that isn’t just” “Siren Queen: YES! FIVE STARS!”
Siren Queen has it all. Queer rep. A female MC fueled by ambition and fire. A magic-filled, golden-age Hollywood setting. Rich, lush characters. Vo’s signature gorgeous prose. Dark rituals and deception. A fight to create a career defined by self-determination – not just a copy of someone else’s. Oh and complex female friendships AND complicated love affairs. Are the villains who are truly villains. No swooning.
Like the mythical sirens, this book fully drew me in and left me shipwrecked (and in a reading slump!) and 10/10 would do it again.
Read this book if you’re searching for the dark underside of the glamour that lurks behind old Hollywood gossip and if you want a book that makes magic and rituals (and monsters) feel totally believable. Siren Queen is a character-driven book that will make you wish you had a fainting couch to recover on now that it’s over.
Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Grab your copy from Bookshop.org here or add it to your BOTM! As a fangirl of Book of the Month Club, I love that I could add Siren Queen to my box and get my copy early!