I am not much of a fan of short stories. Because i feel we don`t get enough time with the characters to build up and interest.But i found this to be interesting and i liked it.

I couldn't read this. I always think I like Greek mythology until I am reminded that it is depressing to be a woman in nearly every story. This was too much for me.

Though I’m very late to reviewing this one, I really enjoyed it! It kept me interested, and I would recommend it to anyone who dabbles in this genre.

MacLaughlin seeks to pull out the voices of the women in Ovid's poems, giving them a platform to tell their own stories. The women in myths tend to be victims of the gods' vagaries -- side players in a larger game. The stories in "Wake, Siren" are more than that: they are explorations of rage, desire, grief -- but mostly rage. The writing is often beautiful and poetic, and always imbued with strong emotion.

Don't let the pearl-clutchers scare you off. This book is great.

I wasn't familiar with Ovid before this book but after finishing it I sure am. Learning about these myths made me infinitely sad... why? because of the rape culture that has been passed down through the ages. Almost every other myth is about a beautiful woman running from assault and how they get punished for it. Wake,siren was wonderful because instead of demanding history be rewritten she gave voices to these women. Sometimes the narration was troublesome but.over all an excellent book... and I learned from it.

this has to be one of the most impactful books I’ve read in a long time.

I cannot begin to describe how gut wrenching and enlightening this book is. it is extremely hard to read and has countless triggers (sexual abuse, physical abuse, depression, among many others) but my god did it leave its mark.

this book gives voice to women of ovid’s metamorphosis and shows the brutality they faced in these stories. it is angry, it’s devastating, and it’s absolutely empowering.

this book is not for everyone. it is written in a unique way that many, many people will not enjoy. and you will likely be confused if you don’t have a grasp on greek mythology. but it was the book for me.

I can’t describe this book and the emotional toll it placed on me but I can tell you it was absolutely brilliant, revolutionary, and an utter masterpiece.

As someone who adores Mythology and studied race and gender in college, I have been anticipating reading this one since I heard about it. The idea of a modern feminist prose retelling of Ovid's Metamorphosis is just too good!

I will say that like any good collection of stories there were some that I liked more than others, but overall the collection was a raw, genuine mix of stories that really got to the heart of the original text while giving them a modern twist.

If you have any familiarity at all with Ovid's Metamorphosis you should be aware that there are a good number of trigger warnings on this one. For the most part even the most gruesome stories were done in a very intentional way, but there were a few that made me want to skim. I don't recommend reading this all in one sitting, because I truly think you need to sit with some of these stories to really appreciate them.

Overall, an incredible re-imagining, that occasionally took the spirit of the original text just a little too seriously. 4/5 stars. Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this galley in exchange for my honest review. I highly recommend going into this one with at least some familiarity of the original Metamorphosis.

A lot of ancient Greek mythology is really terrible to women and goddesses in the stories (way too many rape stories, for instance). Nina MacLaughlin updates a number of myths that include the point of view of the women in the story as well as rightly calling out or punishing bad behavior. I would call it a feminist reinterpretation of these tales, but it feels right in the narrative itself rather than modern commentary. I’m a religion PhD student, so I spend a lot of time with myths in the ancient world. I liked this author’s take on these tales and would definitely read more by her! I would rate this a 3.5/5

It's refreshing to see myths being renewed in modern literature. Especially when it's done efficiently. Though this one had good intentions I would say that I enjoyed a few of the interpretations but not all.

Excellent! A very enjoyable reinterpretation of classical mythology with a feminist lens that felt poignant without being preachy

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for giving me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This collection of stories is hard to give a summary for. It's a collection of stories from Greek Mythology told from the perspectives of the women those stories involve. Some of these stories are told with a modern spin, but still in the end tell the same story. Let me begin this review by saying that this book shouldn't be an easy read for anyone, but it does not cross into a line of no return.

Some of these stories end up being pretty repetitive, many of these women cry out to deities who may or may not take mercy on them. But is it really mercy that they receive? Sometimes the deity's attempt at mercy just makes them more accessible to whom they were running from. A few of these women are punished for situations out of their control, but if read with an open mind it is almost necessary in a world where women are constantly battling against each other. Either for a man, job, friends, land women have torn each other apart for centuries. This book can be taken one of two ways, it can be seen as the author having a political motivation in a world of the #MeToo movement, or it can be seen for the warning sign that it is meant to be. Build up your fellow women and if someone opens up to you don't disbelieve just because she says Zeus turned her into a cow for a time.

I give this three stars because while it was an interesting read, I didn't love it and I had trouble with my lack of knowledge in Greek Mythology. Luckily I had it on my Kindle and I found alot of the stories via the Dictionary or Wikipedia, because without any context the stories would not have held my attention. I would recommend this story to those who have a strong background with Greek Mythology and feel like they would get more out of this story than someone like me who relies more on the author to build the world with me as I read.

Nina MacLaughlin's creative and feminist transformations of classic myths will appeal to any reader who grew up loving Greek mythology. Reconsidering these stories from a feminist perspective made me rethink a lot of what I took for granted growing up. It's also a great way for readers to become familiar with these classic tales, while simultaneously questioning the male gaze present in the majority of them in their original forms. I can't wait to see what MacLaughlin does next!

Hmmm. How can I put it without hurting any sentiments? To be completely honest, I did not like these stories. These were supposed to be an introduction to Ovid, but for someone who has never before read or even heard of Ovid, this may not be the best place to start. It just put me off the whole thing. Also, the book cover was not very enticing in the first place. Although it should have been an indication of the disturbing content of the book since it was certainly very Gothic and ill-favored looking. That is not to say I do not appreciate Gothic novels or those that push the boundaries.

There is too much sex and violence in this book and the writing style does the stories no particular favor as well. The author has chosen to place the Gods and heroes and heroines of Ovid in contemporary times, but it does not always work. For example, the story entitled ‘Agave’ was written in the first-person narrative of someone who possibly grew up in the 90’s with the bubblegum-chewing vernacular of using ‘like’ at least five times in a sentence. As a child of the 90’s myself, it should have struck a chord, instead it became extremely annoying to even finish the story.

It may be considered that these are purely feminist takes on the stories, in that, every story deals with the struggles of being a woman and the choice to say no and so on, but it gets too much and too tedious after a while. 'Subtlety' would have worked wonders for me in this case.

It is certainly possible that Ovid’s content deals with just these themes of sex and violence, but then the book should certainly come with a disclaimer about the same. It is not fun to be happily cruising along a regency romance and then be smacked in the face with this heavy material. If, like me, you can take only so much violence and uncouth behaviour in your reading, then this isn't the book for you.

Wake, Siren
by Nina MacLaughlin
Published by FSG Originals
Link to Goodreads review :https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2854357574

Wake, Siren is a retelling of Myths. It shows these myths in a new way. Her MacLaughlin hides nothing, glazes over nothing, romanticizes everything but the harsh truth.

Though MacLaughlin uses modern English and in a vulgar and crude way. it is exactly what is called for. She tells these myths not in a wool over eyes way they are usually told,.

MacLaughlin leaves you in no doubt that you are reading a story about innocence, trust, rape, lies, and vengeance.

MacLaughlin could use beautiful prose in one line and cutting vulgarity the next, yet at no time did I feel it was disjointed.

Each story had held my attention and shock me awake. This is the title, it was my Siren MacLaughlin wanted to wake and every store stoked the fire in my soul.

The stories were not easy to read given their topic but that made them that much more important. I felt, even with the element of magic/power there was a real undercurrent of real life ; the guilty do not always pay, the innocent often suffer, revenge is taken on the wrong person, we can not always control our lives.
For me this book raised one question in particular. Why for all this time have these myths been so loved?

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about injustice, and equality.

I found this book a little hard to get into the authors style was a little different to me but I really enjoyed it and the different point of view it presented

I enjoyed this modern, feminist retelling of ancient myths. Each tale is quite short, making this a book better in bits. Especially since there, unfortunately, was so much just flat out rape in the stories. And, because of the repetition, it does feel a bit one more at times.

“And all those gods, all those deathless ones. They never met regret. They don’t fear mistakes because they don’t know consequences. Never guilty, never punished. I showed you all, showed each crime, showed all you criminals. And yet we’re the ones to pay. How’s it work? You murder. You rape. You violate. And it’s us who fall. Why am I the only one to say it? I say the names of all the fallen.”⁠
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It’s no wonder women have been hunted and degraded, femininity mocked and pitied in a world whose oldest legends tell the tales of men taking and keeping what they want. MacLaughlin's collection gives the women of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the poem that centers much of Roman mythology, the chance to flip the table and reclaim their stories.⁠
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Through the collection, the reader is shifted between stories that feel connected to their mythological roots and others that break into a modern, relatable setting. Each of these women - nymphs, goddesses, and mortals - grapple with the pleasure, fear, desire and need they experience at the hands of men. Too often they are forced into permanence and isolation, being transformed into trees, flowers, birds, and streams, to be free of greedily grazing hands and eyes.⁠
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“I was no longer the full human self I knew myself to be, who is friends with Linda and Daniel and Quinn, who loved grapes as a kid and hated socks, who drew pictures of castles and tigers, who laughs at rhymes and hates ice and loves milkweed pods. All at once that went away and I was a body and an entrance and a means.”⁠
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MacLaughlin’s care to inhabit the minds of these characters, trapped in history, ravished by men’s desires and a man’s pen, is an extension of sisterly love. We may not be able to fix what has happened to ourselves or those we love but we can help ensure that their stories are told true and not erased by silence.⁠
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“Was it punishment, being turned into a woman? I don’t know. Is it punishing to be a woman? It is. It will continue to be.”⁠
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Favorite stories: Eurydice, Arachne, Echo, Io, Medusa, Myrrha

This is a fairly interesting title. It's a series of short sort of flash fiction pieces about various women from mythology, most of whom have been maligned unfairly by history. While I disagree with her assessment of some, being a person who has studied mythology extensively, the writing is compelling and interesting enough to hold your attention.

This modern retelling of Greek myths is fascinating, and at times told in a compelling way. I found myself enjoying the narration style more for some chapters than others, where it felt a bit more jarring. I think the main drawback for me was that it lacked some clarity as someone who was not familiar with every myth being retold, and I found myself caught up on wanting to be able to compare the traditional telling of each story to the version being told in this collection.

My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux/FSG Originals for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Wake, Siren - Ovid Resung’ by Nina MacLaughlin in exchange for an honest review.

I love the classical myths and appreciate it when contemporary authors retell them, especially when they respect the source material as Nina MacLaughlin clearly does. In her Author’s Note she outlines her process: “I read a story, reread it, then spent the day listening to the voice in my mind, trying to hear what this woman sounded like, what story she wanted to tell and how.”

This process of listening to and honouring these individual voices is something that I approve of given that it acknowledges their sovereignty. It feels almost a spiritual process of acting as a conduit for these ancient voices as the oracles and sibyls of the ancient world did.

Her approach is feminist, modern, at times playful while other times savage. The language is explicit in places as well there being scenes that might prove triggering to some readers even after their being in existence for thousands of years. Sometimes moving into contemporary language exposes the ugly nature underlying a number of the myths.

As with all short story collections there were a number that I found excellent and others that didn’t move me as much. I do recognise the importance of this work and its power. I expect that reading in a different mood or on another day might well shift my perception of the individual tales.

I intend to purchase my own copy after publication and reread at a more leisurely pace alongside the translation of Ovid’s ‘The Metamorphoses’ that Nina MacLaughlin cited as her source.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.