This week's one-minute book review is A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow. Transcript below the video.
Red Rover, Red Rover, send this great book right over! A Song Below Water is a fantasy novel about black girl magic - literally - and the power of friendship.
Tavia is a siren, a not-so-mythical creature who can control humans with her voice. Humans fear sirens, and silence them with a collar, so she has to hide her powers.
Her best friend, Effie, is something else that the author hints at when describing the tragic results of a childhood game of Red Rover. The book also has a talking gargoyle, eloko, and sprites.
I loved this book. I thought it did a great job of using fantasy to examine social justice issues. I didn't find any overt queer representation in it, however, which I found odd since it's set in Portland, but the author was already doing a lot. I highly recommend it to people who want to read a fun and thought-provoking YA fantasy.
Longer review -
One of the things I loved the most about this book was the strong and supportive friendship between the two girls. Tavia is dealing with not knowing how to use or control her powers, and Effie is aware of the dangers to her friend and trying to help. The author has shown the complexities of high school friendship with the added layers of being black in a world that's inhospitable - at best - to black women and how their friendships sustain them.
There's also some pointed observations on how society reacts when black women do have power, as only black women are sirens. Tavia's eventual slip-up and use of her powers flows naturally from current events, and is completely believable.
Effie is struggling with changes to her body that go beyond puberty - like gray scales and hair that just won't behave. Her refuge is the swimming pool and the two weeks a year she plays a mermaid at the local Ren Faire (shout out to my Ren Faire friends who will enjoy this subplot!).
I thought the book was weakest when it tried to incorporate a vlogger and hair videos, even though they did matter to the overall plot. And I was waiting for some queer representation since - Portland. Oregon. I've spent time there, I grew up in the Pac NW, it's just...weird to not see it on the page.
But I still highly recommend this book for its excellent use of fantasy to present and examine social justice issues in a way that's creative and engaging. And enraging, sometimes, in a way that it should be. It sucked me in and I read it in just a few hours on the weekend.
It was going to be my standalone novel for this month but the sequel came out in June so I've added it to my library hold list. I definitely care about these characters and want to read more about their lives.
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