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Book Reviewed by:From award-winning author Nghi Vo comes a dazzling new novel where immortality is just a casting call away.
It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic.
"No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers." Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill―but she doesn't care. She'd rather play a monster than a maid.
But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes―even if that means becoming the monster herself.
Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.
BookBrowse Note: Pre-Code Hollywood is the term used to describe the short era between 1929, which marked the widespread adoption of movies with sound, and 1934, when the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines (also known as the "Hays Code") came into force.
The dramatic style and fantastical details sometimes crowd out emotional substance, not giving the reader a sufficient entry point into the zigzagging motion of the plot, which covers Luli's formative experiences in Hollywood and her developing understanding of herself and her desires. This is almost inevitable, as the style is so specific as to get stretched at the edges when applied to each and every situation. But when it works in tandem with the character's moments of vulnerability and discovery, it achieves brilliance...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Elisabeth Cook).
Nghi Vo's Siren Queen follows protagonist Luli Wei through an alternate version of historical Hollywood. While many aspects of the novel's world are fictitious to the tune of spells and supernatural beings, it also explores real-life social and political issues of the time and place, including the phenomenon of "lavender" marriages. A lavender marriage is one meant to create the appearance of heterosexuality while concealing the real sexual orientation of one or both partners. The phenomenon is often associated with gay and bisexual actors during Hollywood's classic era (1910s-60s), who were under significant pressure from studios to project a heterosexual image. Marriages for this purpose were even sometimes arranged by Hollywood studios.
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We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
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Alix E. Harrow, New York Times-bestselling author of The Once and Future Witches
Searing and seductive, Siren Queen is the kind of book that leaves you wrecked on its shores. When I look up at the stars, I'll think of Luli.
