{"id":1087,"date":"2020-08-18T18:51:20","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T18:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/?p=1087"},"modified":"2020-08-26T17:30:22","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T17:30:22","slug":"sirens2-0101_morrow-bethany-c-morrows-a-song-below-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/2020\/08\/18\/sirens2-0101_morrow-bethany-c-morrows-a-song-below-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Sirens2.0101_Morrow \u2014 Bethany C. Morrow’s A Song Below Water"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Detail of the cover of A Song Below Water, from the WBUR.org review<\/a> 8 Jun 2020.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bethany C. Morrow (2020),\u00a0A Song Below Water<\/em>\u00a0(Tor Teen) \u2014 two adolescent sirens \u00a0in and off-shore contemporary Portland, Oregon encounter challenges not unfamiliar to the adolescent and YA readers who will read the novel.<\/p>\n

I CONFESS*: I am not in the demographic readership for whom Bethany C. Morrow wrote A Song Below Water<\/em>. The usage of classical mythological sirens, however, make the book extraordinarily interesting. It seems worth sharing, sight unseen.<\/p>\n

The goodreads page<\/a> for A Song Below Water<\/em> scores over 1,000 reviews since publication in Spring 2020, from an overwhelmingly female readership. \u00a0The mainly 5- and 4-star reviews introduced me to the new term \u201cmisogynoir\u201d and Black Girl Magic. And I am learning from continued browsing the importance of a stunning book cover such as Morrow\u2019s book bears. But, most importantly, the reviews are reminding me that not all books in this world are written at me; reading outside my target is going to be good for me.<\/p>\n

The Kirkus review<\/a> criticizes the novel\u2019s structure and pace without diminishing its overall positive assessment. Booklist\u2019s reviewer calls it a \u201cmust-read for lovers of fantasy and contemporary stories alike.\u201d And my favorite critic, the Children\u2019s Librarian at the Provo City Library, knows that I\u2019m a sucker for just about anything that adapts classical mythology and <\/em>comes with her stamp of approval.<\/p>\n

In classical mythology Sirens range from the highly particular \u2014 three avian daughters of a Muse or companions of Persephone transformed by Demeter \u2014 to the more generalized destroyers of short-sighted sailors or any men charmed by their dangerous wiles. The eroticization of Sirens has often seemed to me to be a development that did not necessarily have to happen. The more benign Starbucks Siren admittedly entices consumers to partake of her addictive product. Sirens traditionally are perhaps unfairly confused with Harpies, ever destructive creatures.<\/p>\n

Morrow\u2019s sirens seem to have concerns of their own. Their world seems to have turned the tables and the sirens are the ones now threatened with disaster. The opportunity to follow some fresh thinking with the Sirens myth comes, thus, as a welcome change. A summer in which I have read more shojo manga than an old-white-male classicist would be expected to \u2014 btw: Riyoko Ikeda\u2019s Orufeusu no Mado<\/em> is vastly underrated world literature! \u2014 somehow really ought<\/em> to end with my reading this fantasy novel pitting two adolescent Black sirens against a hating and prejudiced (i.e. real) world.<\/p>\n

\u2014 RTM<\/p>\n

* The record shows that I opened my admiring review of Ally Condie’s Matched trilogy the very same way! (Mythmatters<\/a>)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bethany C. Morrow (2020),\u00a0A Song Below Water\u00a0(Tor Teen) \u2014 two adolescent sirens \u00a0in and off-shore contemporary Portland, Oregon encounter challenges not unfamiliar to the adolescent and YA readers who will read the novel. I CONFESS*: I am not in the demographic readership for whom Bethany … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-mythology"],"modified_by":"odhwp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1093,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions\/1093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}