Sirena | Donna Jo Napoli | Alright but...

Sirena | Donna Jo Napoli | Sirena

books:

Sirena

	Sirena Donna Jo Napoli Scholastic Paperbacks, 2000 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 120 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In Donna Jo Napoli's beautiful prose, the tragic love story between a mermaid and a mortal comes to life for young readers. When Sirena meets Philoctetes, Hercules' friend, she falls in love. But the young warrior must return home to fight the Trojan War and leave his magical love behind.

Alright but...

I enjoyed this novel, I love retellings of fairytales and though I'm not all the big on the immortality idea the plot was fun and generally quite enjoyable. However, Napoli did not take the book and end it in the direction I might have hoped. The mermaids in the story are cursed to live as mortals until they are loved by a human man but what I hoped would have been addressed was that the true curse was not mortality but immortality. This is because before the mermaids have been loved they have no reason not to live forever but once they have found a man that can love them, they must watch his grow old and die while they live forever. I thought it would have been an interesting turn and was disappointed that it was never brought up.

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Sirena

The book Sirena is a very great book for someone who likes mushy/sad/lovey dovey stories.If you like books with a mystery in it you will not enjoy this book as much as someone who likes love stories.Sirena the protagonist in the book is very shy and not involved.When she notices the sailors beating her sister it changes her whole perspective of everything.in this book the antagonist is a sailor,the head sailor infact that made the decision to beat Sirena's sister. You don't read too much about the antagonist.I believe that when the antagonist decides to kill someone,that Sirena loves,is the most evil thing a antagonist can do to the antagonist.My thoughts about the book are that it is definately not my favorite book because I don't really like love stories.This book gets interesting when Sirena falls in love with a man.Its as if you don't know if they are getting married.

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Easy read yet not entirely worth reading

Having read one of Donna Jo Napoli's other books, Zel, I knew what to expect from her writing. She's lyrical in a melancholic kind of way. This shouldn't be surprising since the story is about a mermaid who wants nothing but to simply love a human man though she's cursed to remain in her mermaid form for eternity. It's part "Little Mermaid" (the original fairy tale) and part revisionist Greek mythology. This is not necessarily a bad combination for a story but I wish the tone of the writing could have been more expressive.
Overall, it's not a bad read. I was just expecting more.

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A different spin on the classic myth

The sirens of classical Greek mythology were creatures with the head, arms, & breasts of a woman but their body was like that of a human-sized bird. They would sing with enchanting voices while perched on the rocks by the shore, hoping to lure sailors to their deaths. It was only during the middle ages that the word siren came to be related with the northern mermaid.

This book supposes that the Greeks were incorrect. Sirena & her sisters are guarded by 3 vultures that fly out to sea & alert them when ships are near their island. People would see the vultures & assume that they were the ones singing, not the mermaids.

These sirens are not immortal. In order to gain immortality, they must gain the love of a human. To do this, they use their beautiful voices to lure men to them. Unfortunately, the rocks around their island are dangerous & many of these sailors cannot swim. They are killed & those that aren't killed despise the mermaids. So, Sirena & her sisters feel horrible about the destruction they've caused but only Sirena's horror outweighs her desire for immortality. She leaves her sisters for a life of solitude, only to meet another man. They become friends & she has to fight her urge to sing to him. Will he love her? Can they be happy, together, on this deserted island? Or will the tides of war carry him away from her, forever?

This was a very interesting story. It's told completely from Sirena's perspective. It's rather short & I read it in under 4 hours. The book is listed as YA, I believe. It does contains sexual references, so parents should use their own judgement on this. I would say it's suitable for 16 & older. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys tales of mermaids or Greek mythology.

If you enjoyed this, or think you will, I also recommend Midnight Pearls: A Retelling of "The Little Mermaid" (Once Upon a Time) by Debbie Viguie & The Changeling Sea (Firebird) by Patricia McKillip.

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