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Title: A Song Below Water
Author: Bethany C. Morrow
Sub-genre: Contemporary fantasy
For some reason, I usually have trouble connecting with contemporary fantasy/magical realism. It’s always been a difficult sub-genre for me to get into, but there are of course, exceptions to every rule, and I was super excited for A Song Below Water to be one of them.
Tavia is a siren living mostly in secret in Portland, Oregon. Only a select few know about her true identity, those who have been chosen to help protect her. Tavia’s father is paranoid about someone finding out Tavia is a siren and forces her to live an extremely sheltered life in order to keep her safe. Tavia’s life gets a little brighter when her adopted sister Effie moves in. But when a public murder trial reveals deep bigotry toward sirens, Tavia feels exposed in a way she never has before, and she feels compelled to do something about the injustices sirens are facing. Effie, in the meantime, is dealing with her own identity crisis. She keeps having blackouts and people around town keep turning to statues, usually right after an encounter with Effie. Each sister has to realize their true inner self, all while dealing with a society who wants them to be anything other than what they truly are.
From a craft perspective, this book is absolutely beautifully written. Again, this is not a genre I’m super into, but I found myself captivated by this story from the first pages. Bethany’s writing itself is gorgeous. Then you couple the gorgeous writing with a story that is so timely and important, and you have a basically perfect book on your hands. Obviously this was written before the recent Portland protests, but I was reading it right around the time they started getting national news coverage and it further amplified (for me) the impact of the book.
If I haven’t already made it clear, I am a white woman, and for me personally, aside from conversations with friends, reading books is how I am best able to see different perspectives. I will never know what it is like to face these situations in real life, but as a reader, seeing the experiences on the page and feeling the emotions of the characters is the closest I will get. There have been several books that have truly opened my mind and changed my perspective, and this is one of them. I have been making a concerted effort to step up my non-fiction reading in terms of anti-racist books, but I think works of fiction like this one are just as important. Yeah, I want to know the facts and the information, but it’s stories like these that make me feel something, and I think that is an even bigger arbiter for change.
Not only is this story beautifully written, but it’s important, and it should be at the top of everyone’s list.
Overall Rating: 5 stars