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kirstenf's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Murder
Moderate: Death, Hate crime, and Blood
Minor: Confinement, Racism, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol
ankonyx's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Mild spoilers ahead for the synopsis, though it only really covers the first 100 pages of the book.
Sing Me To Sleep follows Saoirse, a lone siren in a world of a ruling fae class and subservient humans and witches. As a siren, she has the deepest urge to kill, particularly when near large bodies of water. This urge has brought her to her secondary career, as an assassin. This second job helps pay the bills to protect her little sister Rain, whom she affectionately nicknames Beansprout.
Her main day job, now that she has graduated her training job, is as a bodyguard for prince Hayes, having taking this job against her will and better judgement due to someone blackmailing her. The book follows Saoirse as she tries to uncover who is blackmailing her while also trying to remain undercover as a string of murders all tied to a beautiful woman become revealed.
Saoirse is a deeply grey character and is a fascinating perspective to follow.
Personal feelings:
Positives:
* I really enjoyed seeing the world through Saoirse’s eyes. The world was really interesting and well built, and most of the worldbuilding was done through the eyes of our principal character, which I found really well done. I also liked the synesthesia-esque descriptions of other’s emotions, and how it wasn’t constant (for example, none of the witches had these descriptions). It also really developed Saoirse as a character.
* The characters were really interesting and I enjoyed reading about them. They were all quite flawed but in ways that were consistent and engaging.
* The book had good pacing, keeping my gripped the whole way through without feeling repetitive.
Negatives:
* I would have like to get more of Hayes post-reveal, and in general see why he trusted her so much even when she was being really cagey. Obviously a personal thing, but the ending felt weird because of this to me.
This was absolutely excellent and I cannot wait for the next instalment.
4.5/5 stars
Sing Me To Sleep follows Saoirse, a lone siren in a world of a ruling fae class and subservient humans and witches. As a siren, she has the deepest urge to kill, particularly when near large bodies of water. This urge has brought her to her secondary career, as an assassin. This second job helps pay the bills to protect her little sister Rain, whom she affectionately nicknames Beansprout.
Her main day job, now that she has graduated her training job, is as a bodyguard for prince Hayes, having taking this job against her will and better judgement due to someone blackmailing her. The book follows Saoirse as she tries to uncover who is blackmailing her while also trying to remain undercover as a string of murders all tied to a beautiful woman become revealed.
Saoirse is a deeply grey character and is a fascinating perspective to follow.
Personal feelings:
Positives:
* I really enjoyed seeing the world through Saoirse’s eyes. The world was really interesting and well built, and most of the worldbuilding was done through the eyes of our principal character, which I found really well done. I also liked the synesthesia-esque descriptions of other’s emotions, and how it wasn’t constant (for example, none of the witches had these descriptions). It also really developed Saoirse as a character.
* The characters were really interesting and I enjoyed reading about them. They were all quite flawed but in ways that were consistent and engaging.
* The book had good pacing, keeping my gripped the whole way through without feeling repetitive.
Negatives:
* I would have like to get more of Hayes post-reveal, and in general see why he trusted her so much even when she was being really cagey. Obviously a personal thing, but the ending felt weird because of this to me.
This was absolutely excellent and I cannot wait for the next instalment.
4.5/5 stars
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide and Murder
Moderate: Alcohol and Sexual harassment
ltlmz's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Kidnapping and Alcohol
hal00alex's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
It is definitely reflective of current media trends, but still a unique take on an fae and sirens. Writer relies more on senses when world building. And it ends in a cliff hanger which my by a metaphor on civil rights? There are certain aspects of the senses that get repeated a lot which may break immersion, but it adds more to the characters.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Minor: Drug use, Death of parent, and Alcohol
lizzie_b99's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Violence, Murder, and Classism
Moderate: Blood
Minor: Kidnapping, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol
betweentheshelves's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I honestly have mixed feelings about this book. The world created, with the creatures and the way their society was set up, was really interesting and really detailed, actually. Burton did a good job setting that up and showing what was at stake from the beginning.
However, I think this could have been a standalone book, rather than make it into a series. For me, I felt like the story could have been wrapped up at the end of this book. There's a cliffhanger, sort of, at the end of this one that didn't quite feel like it was necessary.
I've read other books with Sirens before, and I also wasn't a huge fan of how they were portrayed in this book. It was like Saoirse was being made to be an anti-hero, but there wasn't enough balance there. There was just something off about it for me.
Overall, there was a lot of potential here, but the story just fell flat for me.
However, I think this could have been a standalone book, rather than make it into a series. For me, I felt like the story could have been wrapped up at the end of this book. There's a cliffhanger, sort of, at the end of this one that didn't quite feel like it was necessary.
I've read other books with Sirens before, and I also wasn't a huge fan of how they were portrayed in this book. It was like Saoirse was being made to be an anti-hero, but there wasn't enough balance there. There was just something off about it for me.
Overall, there was a lot of potential here, but the story just fell flat for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Bullying, Misogyny, and Racism
Minor: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol
takarakei's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I’m having a hard time deciding how I feel about this book. It was a little slow to start but the overall world building was interesting and well done. However, I can’t decide if the main character being morally gray because she is a siren is well developed enough for me to understand why beyond a surface level. Basically it seemed to be to just be like “she’s a siren so she kills people” and that was it, but idk how I feel about that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Bullying, Misogyny, and Racism
Minor: Death of parent and Alcohol
booksthatburn's review against another edition
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Racism, and Murder
Minor: Violence, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
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