Until the following items are met by the SMP team, I will be withholding any promotion or review of any St. Martin's Press titles (including SMP Romance and Wednesday Book titles):

1. Address and denounce the Islamophobia/racism from your employee.
2. Offer tangible steps for how you're going to mitigate the harm this employee caused.
3. Address how moving forward, you will support and protect your Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab readers, influencers, and authors in addition to your BIPOC readers, influencers, and authors.

I absolutely loved the narration of this story. A beautifully written coming of age novel. The author really did a fantastic job bringing these characters to life.

If you have read the first book, you understand why Naema was not my favorite person, but this book brings a bit more nuance to the series.

The narrators did a great job bringing this story to life.

4/5⭐ to A Chorus Rises by Bethany C. Morrow. Thank you very much to Tor Teen for an egalley to review! I listened to an audiobook copy of this sequel to A Song Below Water and it was delightful! Since this is a sequel, I'm going to keep this short & sweet. This story continues to follow shortly after the events of the first book, focusing now on Naema in this amazing magical-realism world this author has built with sirens, elokos, gargoyles, and other magical beings. I really liked having a new MC to experience this story through, and the world continues to be enchanting while seriously echoing and addressing vital issues in our society, particularly racism and the Black Lives Matter movement with the call for police reformation. It also tackles relevant topics for teen readers such as friendship drama and difficult family situations. Full of Black Girl Magic, I would definitely like to see more people include this duology on their YA summer TBRs!

I honestly struggled with this book for various reasons. Personally I felt like these characters were annoying at times. I didn’t connect with any of them and therefore didn’t enjoy this story as much. It definitely had its moments and I did enjoy the audiobook, however, this wasn’t anything mind blowing nor anything I would usually read.

Loved the diversity in this book!

It was fun and entertaining! Loved the story long so much the narrator did a great job.

Morrow again gives a character driven story here, this time following Naema, a sort of antagonist in the preceding book. What Morrow pulls off so well is the coming to terms of her 'perfection', protection, and privilege that Naema must now face. There are double standards that just be faced, victimhood that needs to be spoken to, who has the power to wield tragedy and loss like a weapon, and the inequalities not only within the magical community, but the wider community as well. Once again Morrow wows with her nuanced and sharp take on race, family, insecurities, privilege, and renewal.

A Chorus Rises is the sequel to A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow, which I enjoyed. This story expands to explore Naema Bradshaw's story. Morrow explores the myth of the siren in this tale, which is always an interesting one to me, as it really explores the role of the feminine - both power and fear. And, this version uniquely does it in a YA context.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

This was such a fun and powerful read! Naema was such a fascinating and exhilarating character and I loved reading her story. The character development of this novel was potentially my favorite part about it! I am really grateful to have been given the opportunity to read an early copy!

The premise of this story is wonderful. I would have loved to read it on my own because the audio version is awful. The narrator uses a whiney, affected voice that made it impossible to finish listening.

I've found this affectation to be popular among narrators speaking as teenagers. I know that this is the stereotype of how teenagers talk, but I've never in all my years heard teenagers talk this way. It's disheartening to know that our teens need to be pigeonholed in this way. It makes them sound unintelligent and petulant. I hate it.

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* i read the first book right before i read this one and wow, i love them both! wasn't expecting that but just wow!

Was unable to listen to this audiobook. Damaged my phone and had to get a new one. When I opened my netgalley app, I was unable to listen.

Naema is a young, privileged woman from Portland, who happens to be an Eloko. Eloko means Naema is blessed with a highly sought after melody that increases her status in society. She is rich, famous, and popular; until she is exposed on social media and a scandal ensues. Overall I enjoyed the story, it tackles topics of societal privilege, the benefits and drawbacks of social media, and overall how image has power - whether for good, or bad.

eally liked A Song Above Water and I was so excited to read a new book in this world told in the perspective of Naema. And this one did not disappoint. It was an engaging story with complex characters.

In in her previous appearance Naema was a mean girl, a villain. So getting in her head was so much fun. She’s definitely the sort of character I would call “an unlikable female protagonist.” She prickly, popular, and unabashedly herself. But she really has some great development throughout the book. Maybe it is because she softens and learns a lot, but in the end I was really rooting for Naema.

This is a book the explores some heavy issues, but it never does it with a heavy hand. It’s a look into privilege and celebrity during the internet age. It also explores race and the intersectionality of having multiple identities. All of these made A Chorus Rising feel like the perfectly relevant book for the current state of the world.

The one thing I wish we had more of was the world. This is a world of magic. And while it permeates the story, I felt like we were really only scratching the surface. I wanted to learn so much about the Eloko. I wanted to see Naema grappling with her powers and discovering how to use them. We got a bit of that, but it left me wanting more.

On the whole, this was a really engaging read and a good sequel/companion novel. I definitely recommend it if you read the first book, or if you want to dip your toe into YA fantasy and like more serious and issue-focused contemporaries.

A Chorus Rises was a bit of a struggle bus for me. It felt like the story lacked consistency. There was a specific plotline that didn’t serve much of a purpose and was only used as a plot device (can't go into details because of spoilers). It felt as though the story I was reading in the beginning was completely different from the end. I felt like this could've been separated into two books and that would have made for a more cohesive storyline. I'm a high-stakes reader, which made the ending feel a little anticlimactic. I unfortunately just never felt truly connected to any of these characters or their stories, so therefore I was left bored and skimming most of the unimportant details in order to get to the end.
Full review to come on my YouTube channel.

A Chorus Rises is the sequel to A Song Below Water, but this book follow a different character. This book gives you the perspective of Naema Bradshaw, who was cast as our villain in book 1 as she exposes Tavia as a siren. Naema is an Eloko, both of these are introduced in book 1 where the majority of the world building for this book takes place. You definitely have to read book 1 to be able to follow this book.

I found that this was a great follow up to the first book and I really liked how this one continues to bring up important issues that affect society. I liked that this book touches on code-switching, embracing your past, and the media's portrayal of Black girls. I also like how we see Naema struggle with herself being an Eloko and how this has impacted her life.

Really strong follow up. I enjoyed being back in this world and the perspective was definitely an interest contrast to the first book. I enjoyed the first book a little more, because I grew to love those two main characters more and their friendship. However, this was still a compelling and interesting story. I will continue to pick up this author!

I absolutely loved A Song Below Water. The story was fantastical while also being so relevant. I found this companion novel fit perfectly with the first.

Naema is such an unlikeable character. But I really appreciated that about her. I find grey characters to be so realistic in regards to how they relate to our own world.

The topics included were really well done in this urban fantasy setting and I would love to see more from this world.

While I understand this book touches on a lot of important topics, I can't help feeling like the real story gets lost among that. I was left underwhelmed by the world building and lack of explanation, much the same with A Song Below Water. An unlikeable main character also makes the story harder to enjoy. I had high hopes that I would like the sequel better than the first book, but I ended up feeling much the same. Just like something was missing.

I'm settling on 2.75-3 stars because I felt underneath it all there were a lot of important messages.

A Chorus Rises takes place a year after A Song Below Water, following popular influencer Naema, an Eloko with a melody that can charm those around her. Naema was accused of "outing" classmate Tavia as a siren, and she feels she's being unfairly cast a villain. Naima is unlikeable - but that's okay. While this story isn't elevated by the characters the way A Song Below Water was, Naima's story touches on important topics including code switching, embracing your heritage, and media portrayal of Black girls in America.

While the message was important and executed wonderfully, I continued to be left underwhelmed by the confusing world building and lack of explanation. This was pitched as a companion more than a sequel, which is absolutely wrong - while I’ve read the first book, it’s been a while, and I was totally lost for the first 20% of this book. You need to be very familiar with what happened at the end of book 1 for this to make any sense, so I'd recommend skimming through the end of the first book before diving into this.