Name: Lullaby
ISBN: 9781250005656

Lullaby

Siri 

Good book about sirens and a chase. 

genre: fantasy 

Hannah Yang

I'm a little disappointed. I love this series. I love most stories about sirens. I had really high hopes for Lullaby because of how much I enjoyed reading the first book in this series, Wake. However, Lullaby was really nothing compared to that.



Lullaby started off right where Wake ended, and the very bland beginning really just talks about Harper, Alex, and Marcy doing research on what Gemma has become (which was especially boring and inconsiderate to the readers because we already know). Plus, Harper's unconvincing resisting her feelings for Daniel. The sections with Gemma are equally boring, talking about her new life as a siren, the pain of resisting the watersong + not feeding, etc. 

When Harper, Alex, and Daniel finally figure out where Gemma is, they hop into a car and get driving. I just felt like Gemma's rescue was way too easy. They just drive over and she swims out to them, and they go? Sure, the sirens did come after them again, but that was a point in the plot that could have had action (and no, not just action between Alex and Gemma). It could have been dramatic and interesting, but instead, it was 'blah'. 

And really, blah is how I felt for most of the novel. It was just stuff happening, but none of it was really engaging. Lullaby felt like a filler for the series, and although I enjoyed Daniel and Harper's budding romance, and the hint that Daniel and Alex were immune to the sirens' charms, nothing pulled me in or intrigued me. The story was just that, a story.

The characters were just as bland. Gemma showed basically no multidimensional characteristics and actually spent quite a lot of time talking about how beautiful she became. Although there was a part in the story where it talks about her optimism, I felt none of it here. I couldn't connect with her at all. 

Alex was basically there. He just felt too obsessed with Gemma, since I didn't feel any chemistry between the two. While Daniel and Harper had their cute moments, Alex and Gemma weren't convincing at all. Like Gemma, he seemed like a completely flat character: if your girlfriend became a siren and left, you wouldn't just miss her and feel sad. You could feel angry or hurt, not just desperate to find her again. I felt like with his situation, he had the chance to show more as a character, and he didn't. Plus, I really don't see why we needed to know about his interest in the weather. It may come to use in the future books, but that felt like such a minor detail.

Harper was... alright. I just feel like Amanda Hocking was so lazy with the characters in this book: she didn't seem to change. It seemed like she was stuck in the role of an overprotective big sister. At times I felt myself wishing she would do something reckless or interesting, since she narrated a large portion of the book, but she didn't. Daniel did capture my interest a little. His resistance to the Penn makes me believe he will be a more significant character in future books, and there's nothing really unlikable about him.

The sirens were irritating. Penn was constantly described as a "bitch" and basically spent a lot of time making out with Sawyer. There was no depth to her at all. She just bossed Gemma and everyone else around and made people hate her. Lexi annoyed me a lot. I had high hopes for her in the first book, but now she just seems to be a lamer copy of Penn. Thea was the only one that got close to interesting, but she was more like an information dump than a character. I have a feeling that she was meant to be the siren that "seems all tough and unapproachable but ends up being Gemma's bestie" or something.

Writing wise, everything felt technically okay, but nothing interested me. If this book were a siren, Penn would have killed it by now. Plus, I can't help but roll my eyes at the ending. Cliche much? Also, I thought Alex was able to resist siren's song. Suddenly, just for a plot twist (and I doubt he and Gemma are going to remain broken up, anyways) he can't?

Lullaby was a disappointment to me. I learned nothing about breaking the curse, and was expecting a lot more based on my positive experience with Wake. Out of love for the series, and with high hopes because of the higher rating of the next few books, I'm going to keep reading, but I thought Lullaby could have been much, much better.

Lullaby

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