Bethany C. Morrow: "A Song Below Water" (ARC Review)

Title: A Song Below Water  [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: A Song Below Water (1st of 2 books - I'm editing this post after publication because now there's a companion book coming out in 2021)
Author: Bethany C. Morrow [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Urban Fantasy, Contemporary
Year: 2020
Age: 14+
Stars: 3.5/5
Pros: Vividly depicts the Black women experience and how their voices keep getting silenced. Makes a strong case for found family in the form of sisterhood. 
Cons: The supernatural aspect, if engaging, gets confusing, with lots of different creatures thrown in with not enough context. The kids/parents dynamics are off.
Will appeal to: Those who crave for a magical adventure on the backdrop of the Black (female) reality - or the reverse.

Blurb: Tavia is forced to keep her siren identity under wraps in a society that wants to keep her kind under lock and key. At least she has her bestie Effie by her side as they tackle high school drama, family secrets, and unrequited crushes. But everything changes in the aftermath of a siren murder trial that rocks the nation; the girls’ favorite Internet fashion icon reveals she's also a siren, and the news rips through their community. Tensions escalate when Effie starts being haunted by demons from her past, and Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice during a police stop. (Goodreads excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.
Note: this started as a buddy-read with my friend Lindsi from Do You Dog-ear? A little more than a third into the story, she realised she wasn't feeling it, while I - despite a few qualms - was engaged enough to read the whole thing, so we amicably parted ways 🙂.

PAINT IT BLACK

B.C. Morrow's YA debut has got a cool, engaging premise, in the form of Black sirens - which not only is a unique one as far as supernatural bookish tropes are concerned (though the TV show Siren does have Black merfolks), but also lends itself to a powerful social commentary about how Black women's voices are feared and/or silenced. And here's the thing: as a book about the Black female experience, ASBW hits the mark - which comes as no surprise, since it's an #ownvoices novel. The story touches upon a series of situations/themes such as the Black Lives Matter movement, being stopped by the police for no apparent reason, having to fly under the radar - more so because of a secret siren identity - or having one's hair touched without consent. By the way, there's also a hair-related plot point that I can't talk about - because it would be a giant spoiler - which ties in with Effie's typical Black hairdo, as much as being a siren ties in with Tavia's Black female voice.
Additionally, it was refreshing to read a book that centers on the friendship/sisterhood between two girls, though at first it sounds like Tavia is jealous of Effie (who has, for all purposes, being adopted into her family) and though she calls Effie her "play-sister", which sounds standoffish at best. But as the story progresses, we can see the love between these two girls, and how they support (and even complement) each other. These are the things that ASBW does best. [...]

ALL CREATURES BIG AND SMALL

The supernatural aspect of this book was what that lured me in to begin with, but it turned out to be the weakest part of the story for me. I expected a book about sirens, while it was chock full of different creatures - like elokos, sprites, and even gargoyles (that's all I can say without spoiling the book for you). I didn't mind Googling the ones I wasn't familiar with, except the author put so huge a spin on them (mainly on elokos) that they weren't unrecognizable - so why not come up with her own mythology in the first place? Also, elokos and sirens seem to have enough in common that they can be in the same network, except the first can stay out in the open, whereas the second have to live off the grid - or wear a collar to silence their voices (though an eloko ultimately decides to wear a collar too for a specific reason). The network itself posed a problem for me, because it should have been a supporting circle, while - apparently - it was a place of petty jealousies between teens (and why should a teen have been in charge of it? let alone one who would end up purposefully outing a character as an alleged siren?).
A plot point revolves on a yearly faire where there's a mermaid act, which surprised me because not only it has dedicated fans, but there are even online forums (or at least one) about it. Now, not only I find it hard to buy that a thing that happens once a year for a few days can cause such a commotion, but I wonder why the same people who fear/hate sirens should love mermaids instead (and again, I'm not sure what kind of distinction Morrow is doing between them. Are her mermaids like sirens, only tamer and more friendly?).
There's also a supposed twist in the supernatural department that, alas, I was able to figure out early on (and so did the friend I was reading this book with). It was cool and everything, but hardly the surprise that it should have been.

FAMILY DRAMA

My last point is about the girl's relatives. Both Tavia and Effie have different family problems (since Effie, despite having been adopted by Tavia's parents, still has a grandmother). I can't explain much because I would spoil the story big time, but suffice to say that there are secrets that would be better talked about, and a bunch of paranoid rules for disappearing (especially for a world that never sounds like the Big Brother is watching) enforced by Tavia's dad. Also, given a painful incident that occurred to Tavia when she was a kid, I found her family too focused on her staying off the radar, as opposed to making her feel loved and listening to her (which is kind of ironic, in a book that revolves on a siren's - and Black girl's - voice).
Despite all the problems I listed above (and other ones that I couldn't mention, either to avoid spoilers, or to abstain from making this review even longer than it already is), I did enjoy A Song Below Water, and I think it makes a lot of good points about being Black and female on the backdrop of a supernatural setting. I have Morrow's debut (adult) novel Mem on my TBR list, and I'm looking forward to the new, hopefully as original worlds the author will come up with in the future.

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