Sirena Review:
Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 210
Genre: Romance/ Fantasy
From: Paperbackswap.com
Synopsis: 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. From Goodreads.com (sorry that's all there was)
For the past few months this book has been sitting on my shelf. I have taken it on every trip I’ve been on this summer, but never opened it until yesterday. The only reason I even took it was because it was only two hundred pages long and would have been great for a car ride. Now I wish I had opened it sooner because within these pages was a romantic story that really made feel for the characters. I found myself wishing for Sirena and her lover’s happiness as they fought time, the Gods, frightening creatures, and their differences from each other. I fell in love with their story with each new scene.
This story greatly surprised me because of the strong sense of location. Much of the story takes place on the Greek island of Lemnos during the times of Greek Mythology and the Trojan War. I wasn’t expecting the many Greek myths presented in this story. I love stories of the Olympians, and when several famous Greek heroes made appearances I was thrilled. All of this really gave the story more of a foundation, and increased the pace. Sirena really based her character off of these stories like the way Christians follow the message of the bible. When I first started reading Greek Myths I found it hard to believe that people really believed these things to me it was just a way to explain the changing of the seasons in ancient times. Donna Jo Napoli made it believable; she made Sirena a very believable character.
Sirena wasn’t like the other mermaids. In the beginning of the novel Sirena and her sisters lead a ship of men to their deaths. The author makes the reader sympathize with the mermaids. Sirena never wants to knowingly kill another man even if it does give her immortality so she leaves her sisters. When she meets Philoctetes she changes in the same way people in relationships do. They learned from each other, made compromises, and found a way to live together when Sirena couldn’t live on land. The author did a beautiful job with everything.
Characters: 7
Plot: 7
Suspense: 8
POV: 7
Pace: 7
Theme: 8
Style: 8
Details: 8
Cover: 7
Overall: 7.5
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