January 2017 Book Review: Wake

WAKE

By Amanda Hocking 

~Book Review~

Warning! Major spoilers!

OH, CANNIBALISTIC SIRENS.

Amanda Hocking knows how to create great hooks. In Wake, there are four beautiful and mysterious girls with entrancing voices who seem to have an unhealthy obsession with swimming at night. But one day, one of them disappears. Cursed to always have four sirens in their pod (?) lest they should die, these scaly mean girls are looking for a replacement…

Like I said, great and creepy idea, but the execution lacked. The writing style is superficial, and it was difficult to connect to Mary Sue— I mean, Gemma—let alone her protective older sister, Harper, who spends her days mooning over a boy. Gemma is beautiful, sensitive to others’ feelings, and a supernaturally good swimmer. The siren Penn, the most interesting character in the book, evilly plots to transform her into a flesh-eating siren, and I was just hoping she would hurry up to get to the action.

Considering they have existed since the time of Greek gods, the three villainous sirens are vain and don’t seem to have learned much. Hocking tells their back story in one info dump: they failed to protect a rather catty goddess, and thus they were cursed to be immortal and seduce men to their doom, but will never be loved in return. There is an easy way to break this curse: if they don’t have all four members by the full moon, then they die. However, Penn thinks their immortal siren lives are pretty great and has no interest in breaking the curse. She threatens Gemma’s family so Gemma is forced to go along with their wicked ways.

I found myself skimming repeatedly. The first chapter was neat, but after that, Gemma and her cardboard family go about their normal lives and say repeatedly that there is “something not right” about the siren girls without connecting the dots until halfway through the book. Right when the story gets interesting toward the last pages, it ends. However, due to the lack of caring about any of the characters, I won’t be checking in for what happens next in Lullaby. This is more for younger fans of urban fantasy lite books.

Recommended for fans of: Colleen Houck, Alexandra Adornetto, and Lauren Kate

Upcoming Book Review: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson