This book is vibes, masterfully done vibes and if you like them you will probably have a great time with this book. This is set in a more magical, dream like golden age of holiday America with our main character who wants to become a star no matter the cost and makes a name for herself as the villainous siren in several movies. This is her story that she is telling us from her childhood, how she fell in love with movies, to how she obtained her stardom. Siren Queen is a fantasy but its a very soft magic system, which dream like qualities, and what I mean by that is the magic makes sense like how everything makes sense in a dream. There are blood deals made for contracts and supernatural creatures behind the scene but all of these vibes and aesthetic also come with a thematically rich story about a woman trying to keep her agency and do what she loves in a Hollywood full of literal monsters. I personally really enjoyed this story even though it took me longer than I expected for such a short work. Its just a very lush and vibrant experience where I just went with the flow and enjoyed the story I was told.

I am a huge fan of Nghi Vo's work, and Siren Queen is a stellar example of everything I love about her writing and her storytelling. The atmosphere she crafts of the 1920s Hollywood studio machine, the life of an immigrant family, and the general hopes and fears of the Roaring Twenties is immediate and engrossing. The magical realism only adds to the mix.

BY: JENNY HAMILTON
ISSUE: 4 JULY 2022

After blazing onto the SFF scene in 2020 with The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo has gone from strength to strength. An animating concern of all her work is the question of how to navigate power from its sidelines. The titular empress of Vo’s debut novella rises to her ruling position by making canny use of people and objects considered beneath the notice of the ruling class. In The Chosen and the Beautiful, Jordan Baker runs up against the limits of the belonging, and even the identity, afforded to her by the white, wealthy Daisys and Gatsbys of the world, including the woman she has known as her adoptive mother.

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/siren-queen-by-nghi-vo/

I couldn't finish this. I just wasn't into the story at all. I got the ARC months ago and gave up. I don't even remember what I read, or what made me put it down. Maybe the exploitative nature of that industry was something I couldn't stand reading at the time. Who knows.

Enter the glittering world of Old Hollywood, where the very fabric of stardom is rife with dark bargains and sacrifice. To those that dare attempt fame, they must navigate a complicated system, competing for the limelight, and inevitably paying the ultimate price. For Luli Wei, a young Chinese American coming of age in this tumultuous time and desperately seeking stardom, the dark truth to the movie industry is inconsequential. She is more than willing to offer up her soul for the chance to shine and burn, even if it means becoming someone else entirely. In a system where the studio heads have all the power, and blood and ancient ritual is second nature, to yield is to begin. The silver screen beckons her forth, and to succeed in an industry determined to push her to the sidelines she may have to take on the role of the monster itself.

Siren Queen is an alluring novel, laced with a ferocity that reverberates throughout every page. In typical fashion Nghi Vo creates a vivid picture, ingeniously depicting the glamorous world of Old Hollywood and its frightening underbelly. Through the eyes of a young woman looking back upon her journey to the limelight, this golden age of Hollywood is given new voice – one that dwells in the bottomless deep, luring you from the shore before dragging you down into its murky undertow. It's been awhile since I read a book that left me as epically stranded and desperate as this one and I’m sure I won't find anything like it again. Throughout the narrative, there is a luminosity that shines through even the darkest moments. Existing as a queer, Chinese American woman during the time of pre-code Hollywood is a poignant center for the entirety of Luli’s story. This landscape breeds a unique sort of desperation and a drive to break free from the predetermined roles set by these studios and the world at large. Luli Wei is such an incredible representation of that and a person willing to be flawed to get where she wanted. Knowing that Siren Queen was also giving a slice of Evelyn Hugo energy only led me further into the deep end of this novel. While I would have liked more with Luli and her future partner, there is a staggering beauty in this narrative being a kind of open letter penned to her past self and future relationships. For those looking for something in the vein of Evelyn Hugo, this is right up there thematically, but don't expect an exact comparison between the two. In her sophomore novel, Nghi Vo explores the realities of fame, what it means to pursue it on your own terms, and who you have to become in order to succeed. With razor-sharp teeth, Siren Queen shines like a beacon in the storm, bringing to light a truth far deadlier when realized.

SIREN QUEEN is such an interesting take on Hollywood. Incorporating real magic, monsters, and the big screen, Vo takes readers on a fantastical ride.

I was so captivated by this story and Vo’s writing throughout. I appreciated how Vo added fantasy and magic into the story, but also incorporated topics such as xenophobia, gender inequality, and LGBTQ characters. It all came together to form a unique story about the magic, and dangers, of Hollywood.

At times I did want more explanation about the magic and immortality mentioned throughout the book. Part of this was because I was so fascinated by the story itself that I kept wanting more. Overall though I really enjoyed SIREN QUEEN and the characters that Vo created.

I had really high hopes for this book. I was intrigued by the premise of an old Hollywood type story with a dark and vampiric twist. This book was a little too slow burn for me and I struggled to keep my attention. I would love to come back to this book for a reread as I think the premise and plot have a lot of promise.

I loved this book so much. It was such a unique and fascinating story, with beautiful writing and plenty of allure. I absolutely loved everything about this book, especially Luli herself. As an Asian American girl with a love of old hollywood, seeing Luli, a gay Asian American women navigate through old Hollwyood with the addition of monstors and magic was so cool. Luli was the kind of character that would do anything to get what she wants, and would fight to the bone to reach her dreams. Seeing how she was able to navigate through a very racist, mysogonist, and homophobic environment was amazing and very relevant to our current time. I loved the element of fantasy here, and it gave the story some more depth and mystery which I loved. I also really appreciated the Sapphic relationship depicted here, and it overall just had so much amazing representation. This was a five star read for me, and I can't wait to read Nghi Vo's other works!

An etherial and mysterious Fantasy seemingly inspired by Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American Hollywood movie star.
Rating: 4 stars
Genre(s): Fantasy/Magical Realism
Representation: Chinese-American, Sapphic
Content Warnings: Racism, Sexism, Sexual Assault (mentioned), Coercion

One thing I love about Nghi Vo's writing is the way she creates a sort-of dreamy yet mysterious atmosphere. This book has that quality layered onto the old hollywood setting. This book is described as Sci-Fi/Fantasy on Netgalley but I would also add Magical Realism. I was immediately captivated by Vo's writing and the Luli's story. Much of the book was uncanny. Especially Luli's father and her experiences with the filmmakers.

I was disappointed by the lack of development with the immortality part of the storyline. It was mentioned often throughout the book but I felt like it didn't really come to anything in the end.

Regardless, I enjoyed this book and think that folx who love enigmatic stories will, too.

Siren Queen is stunningly brilliant and I did not expect it to bowl me over in the way that it did. Set in an alternate Golden Age Hollywood, the novel literalizes the predatory practices of Hollywood studios at the time, especially toward women and marginalized groups with fae magic and monsters.

I've have yet to be dissapointed by Nghi Vo with previous books, so I went into this one with high expectations! Reading the synopsis and others reviews, I went into thinking this would be similiar to the ever so wonderful The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. While they are both movies actresses, the two books are incomparable. That being said, I didn;t hate it, but I was not a fan. Even thought the book is fairly short, it took a long time to get through it. I would still recommend this book.

This was such a great story! I loved everything about it! It kept the pages turning the whole time. I read it in a day so I absolutely couldn’t put it down!

“You better know who you are,” she said, “because you don’t look strong enough to be me.”

It took me a little bit to feel settled into the never-fully-explained fantasy elements, but once I did….wow. They made this Old Hollywood intrigue-and-romance story so special.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review (even though I’m only now getting around to reading it!).

In this historical fantasy, through grit, persistence, and a deal that shaves twenty years off her life, a star is born. Luli Wei's a Chinese-American lesbian in a time where much is stacked against her, but her talent and razor-sharp ambition take her onto the silver screen in the 1930s. She gains enemies and friends aplenty, connects with queer people and her own identity, loses touch with her family and gets in touch with her inner monster, and goes toe-to-toe with dangerous powers that be.

Jane also has multiple romantic arcs throughout her career, one that happens off-page in the future. It is visible in parenthetical asides as Luli tells her life story. These snippets of conversation with her beloved Jane act as a kind promise of something warm and affectionate in Luli's future. We know to expect fame is coming as she narrates her own rise, but the constant danger and lurking darkness cast a sickly pallor on the endeavor. Knowing she is headed towards happiness that is separate from her ambition gave me a thread of hope that stars and spotlights couldn't inspire. That it's sapphic is decadent icing on top. Platonic friendships inspire as much emotion. Luli's friendship with her roommate and confidante, Greta, is based in mutual loyalty in the face of great struggles. Her advocate and friend, Harry, gives Luli an idea of what success may look like as a queer person, learning of the bittersweet realities in a rare safe space.

While the relationships and Luli as a character had me deeply invested in this story, the fantasy elements were another matter. I found it hard to follow the world-building. I enjoy this style of fantasy where magic slips through the cracks of history, making something new and otherworldly that still retains the flavor and power structure of a duller reality. However, it added to my confusion when I couldn't tell if I was encountering a beautifully worded metaphor or an offhand remark about a magical fact of this world. Often, I concluded it was both, but the uncertainty was an itch I couldn't ignore. While it kept the story sleek and avoided a dreaded info dump, I didn't enjoy the confusion running through my tiny brain at regular intervals. A more literary-minded reader would enjoy this very aspect that was only baffling to me, I suspect. Also, some of my questions about terms were answered later in the story but not in a way that felt worth the wait.

If you like your fantasy with a literary quality, enjoy seeing queer characters find love and success that boost their whole community, and like to read about characters as messy as they are inspiring, this would be a great read for you. Thanks to Tordotcom for my copy to read and review!

After hearing about her work for a few years now, I decided to give Nghi Vo a try. SIREN QUEEN exceeded every expectation I had of her writing. One of my favorite hyper-specific genres is Asian Americans in pivotal US history moments (think: the Wild West, the Gold Rush, the Jazz Age, etc). I didn't realize I also needed a magical realist book about Asian Americans in the Golden Age of Hollywood, but here it is and I loved it.

Nghi Vo’s Siren Queen is a novel that is ultimately about the price of fame — a subject I could tell you all about. I’ve had a little taste of fame, mostly from my days as a freelance journalist and a music critic, and I can tell you one thing about fame: it’s for empty people and it’s not worth chasing after. The thing with fame, you see, is that once you’re on a pedestal, people will try their darndest to knock you off. I suppose that’s why fame is so fleeting and isn’t really lasting. If you don’t think that’s true, go to just about any teenager and ask them to name any of the Marx Brothers. Fame lasts until people die (and perhaps not even that long), and then things fall out of memory. You must be a Shakespeare or a Mozart to have a legacy — that is, you must be so brilliant that you become a household name even when the very thing that made you famous has long fallen out of favour. So, fame? You shouldn’t chase after it. Try to have a good life instead. There’s something to be said for having those that you love intimately around you, rather than millions of people who know you but don’t really know you. “I can’t pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend,” indeed.

The thing is, in Siren Queen, the main protagonist chases after fame. Luli Wei is a Chinese American young girl living in Los Angeles during the transition from silent movies to Hollywood’s Golden Age of talkies when she’s discovered by a director on the street and he casts her as an extra on the spot. This leads to more roles and, eventually, Wei selling her soul of sorts to become a bona fide movie star. However, Siren Queen is no ordinary novel. It’s equal parts horror fiction meets magic realism, for the Hollywood that Vo paints is not your typical tinsel town. This is a land where mechanical wolves guard a studio’s gates, where magic gets doled out behind the scenes, and people of different ethnicities get a chance to become leading men and women — which was not the case in the true Hollywood of the 1930s. That’s what makes Siren Queen so majestic and marvellous. In many ways, it is a book unlike any others that you might have read because it vaults between genres with aplomb while keeping the straightest of faces.

And because this is a revisionist history of sorts, Siren Queen is stuffed to the gills with lesbian sex scenes. There’s an explicit one that comes about halfway through the read that may make readers wet with delight (even for us straight cis-gendered male readers). This is a novel that doesn’t play it straight at all, and there’s no pun really intended there (unless you want there to be one). That makes Siren Queen even more admirable. There’s so much going on with this novel that you might have to read it twice to really capture all the nuances. However, that all said, the book can be a bit confusing at times. For instance, at the start of the novel, Wei and her sister sneak off to go to the movies at the nearest nickelodeon. The problem is that they have no money to pay to see the films. The ticket taker at the entrance allows them in, so long as they give her an inch of their hair as payment. The significance of this was lost on me and didn’t make much sense. Was their hair somehow magical? The book never reveals this. Other things just go on unexplained, which can make Siren Queen baffling to read and experience at times.

As far as the experience goes, though, I found the first act of Siren Queen to be the best, as we watch young Wei make her mark in the pictures business. The rest of the novel, for all its inventiveness, doesn’t measure up. It’s the coming-of-age part of the story that’s the most fascinating. The rest I could take or leave, especially because Hollywood — even a completely overhauled and reimagined Hollywood — is all surface and no depth. (I suppose there are the Oscars if you’re looking for artistic merit, but they’re strangely absent from this read.) Still, readers with a keen sense of adventure will appreciate the ride and will keep flipping the pages to find out how all this ends. Siren Queen is not a bad read, and is at times terrific, but it’s not as great as it could have been. It needed a tad bit more world-building because it’s hard to plumb any significance to this without it. However, for what it does in terms of giving voice to actors of non-white descent and those whose sexuality belongs to the multi-coloured spectrum, Siren Queen is an important read and a genuinely engaging slice of genre-bending fiction. As for the price of fame, well, in its own way, Siren Queen does show what one has to pay if they want to leave the fame machine of their own volition. It doesn’t have so much to say about the world trying to pull you down — unless, of course, you count the directors and studio executives who want to keep a piece of your soul to be famous. In the end, I’m not sure what Siren Queen really means to say, but one thing is for certain: Nghi Vo is destined to become an important figure in the fantasy realm of fiction if she isn’t one already. With Siren Queen, even as it sometimes troubles the reader with its lack of explanations for strange happenings, Vo has earned something here, even if I cannot quite put a finger on what it might be.

DNF @ 20%. Cannot really follow where the story will go and can’t really connect with the MC. The writing style was also confusing for me.

Siren Queen was my first read from Nghi Vo and now I cannot wait to read her backlog. While mainly historical fiction, the nonsensical magical and fantastical moments really elevated the story of Luli – a Chinese American with dreams of being a movie star in Old Hollywood. It took me sometime to get my bearings in the story, but once I did, I was impressed with Vo’s prose and weaving Luli story with elements of monsters (real and imaginative), her friends, her enemies, and everyone in between.
Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an unbiased review!

Siren Queen is one of those books that I have to step away from and come back to. I'm about 40% of the way through the book, and so far I'm enchanted by the lyrical writing and the atmospheric old Hollywood setting, but the plot has not been able to hold my attention. I am okay reading books without a strong plot -- but the characters have to make up for it, and in this case, I haven't yet seen that come to full fruition. This is partly by design -- you're surrounded by men who are monsters and a main character determined to become a star,

Nghi Vo has been on my fantasy list for a long time, and I can see why she has been on the rise. I'm having a difficult reading year and so I think the slower pace and whimsical magic system are things that would capture my attention if I was in a different place. This might be the perfect type of book to listen to on audio (just not late at night...) and I look forward to trying more by this author.

EDIT: One last thing! As I was reading this, I was watching a documentary about Asian representation in film and how it has changed over the years with my partner (Asian Americans on PBS) that really enhanced my understanding and appreciation of this book. You can see the direct influence of Anna May Wong and the way that Asian Americans have been treated throughout the years on screen. I highly recommend it!

After blazing onto the SFF scene in 2020 with The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo has gone from strength to strength. An animating concern of all her work is the question of how to navigate power from its sidelines. The titular empress of Vo’s debut novella rises to her ruling position by making canny use of people and objects considered beneath the notice of the ruling class. In The Chosen and the Beautiful, Jordan Baker runs up against the limits of the belonging, and even the identity, afforded to her by the white, wealthy Daisys and Gatsbys of the world, including the woman she has known as her adoptive mother.

The unnamed(-ish) protagonist of Vo’s latest book, Siren Queen, suffers no illusions about the obstacles that will face a Chinese American girl hoping to break into the movies in the (so-called) Golden Age of Hollywood. In her earliest years of going to the cinema, before she ever has aspirations to stardom, she sees that the only Chinese actress on her screen plays the same role over and over again, perpetually culminating in her death. Still she dreams of becoming part of the Hollywood machine, seeing stardom as an escape from a life where other people’s dismissive looks determine who she is and what she deserves.

I wanted what Clarissa Montgomery had, the ability to take those looks, to bend them and to make them hers, to make the moment hers, to make the whole world hers if she wanted. I wanted that, and that want was the core of everything that came after.

That she hopes to escape from the limiting roles her own world offers her by fitting herself into fictional roles scripted by prejudiced men with profit in mind is a driving tension of the book. Luli Wei, as she comes to be known professionally, prides herself on her practicality and clarity of vision, but her steely ambition cannot be untangled from her bottomless, sincere love of the movies. She determines from the beginning that she’ll steer herself clear of the stereotypical roles available to non-white actresses in the era. She won’t faint, she won’t do comedy accents, and she won’t play maids. In pre-Code Hollywood, this means that the studios don’t quite know what to do with her, and every day she can’t get work heightens the risk that she’ll disappear into the sea of failed starlets the studio heads have sacrificed to maintain their own power and fame.

I use sacrifice here advisedly—and literally. The world of Siren Queen is not the Hollywood of our own world, though Vo’s invented films sound so plausible that I kept scurrying to IMDb to double-check that they were fictional and therefore not available on streaming services for me to watch in real life. (To save you the effort of doing the same: she made them all up.) (I am like 75 percent sure she made them all up.) Luli’s Hollywood is a world of magical circles, changelings, and Wild Hunts. The first time Luli ever goes to the movies, she pays the cost of her admission into the cinema with an inch of her hair.

“An inch of hair is two months of your life,” [the ticket agent] said. “Give or take. An inch … that’s your father coming home, your mother making chicken and sausage stew, skinning your knee running from the rough boys …”

It made sense, or at least I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t understand.

Neither Luli nor the reader ever comes to a full understanding of the dark magical bargains that underlie the glamorous world of the movies. Vo has a knack for sharing exactly enough information to put a chill down our spines, but never enough to let us feel that we have a solid grip on the possibilities of the world. It’s a very deliberate choice that leaves the audience in much the same position as Luli and her colleagues: even as they begin to learn more about the world in which they reside and the risks they run simply by existing within it, there are always a hundred horrifying possibilities that just haven’t occurred to them yet. For every step Luli takes along the path to hoped-for fame, she must pay a price. And at every step, she’s at risk of toppling into the darkness and losing herself altogether, as has been the fate of so many actresses before her.

Abigail McKinnon had been white with slick black hair, my height and my build—we could have shared clothes if anything had remained in her that cared about clothes. The nodder that was left after Abigail got pregnant and refused to give up her baby got more work than I did.

Have you ever seen a movie where a part was simply filled? There’s no life or wit to the person spilling the drink, or running from the riders, or smiling in the crowd scene, but they’re there and you don't notice until much later how stiff they were, how awkwardly they moved. ... Even after what was lit up in [the nodders] had been extinguished, they still took direction, even if they did it clumsily and badly.

Siren Queen is packed full of such Shirley Jackson–esque details, so that neither the reader nor Luli is ever able to forget the very real, very sinister danger that awaits her if she goes too far, if she crosses the wrong person, if she is ever too much her authentic self. Luli is perpetually navigating the fraught question of her own agency. On one hand, she’s walked into this life with her eyes wide open, giving up pieces of herself—and of her family—for the slim hope of becoming a star. But like all the other women in her position, once Luli is in with the studios, she’s relentlessly policed, controlled, and terrorized, not just by predatory contracts and the day-to-day indignities of institutionalized prejudice (misogyny, racism, queerphobia; the list goes on), but by the constant threat of being consumed by the dark powers the studio heads wield.

Within a world that sharply constricts women’s choices, Vo’s characters all make their own compromises with the powers that be. Luli’s first maybe-love, Emmaline Sauvignon, possesses the type of (white) beauty that’s instantly legible to the studio heads. As a queer woman, though, her success in the industry is contingent and precarious. She works hard to conceal her queerness and resents Luli for not making those same compromises. Another love interest, a writer called Tara, can be more open about her sexuality, in part because the industry doesn’t quite see her as a person in the first place. Jewish, a writer rather than an actor, not the right kind of beautiful, Tara goes to gay bars and won’t kowtow to the ideal of femininity that Emmaline represents. Louisa Davis, an actress whose career recalls that of Hattie McDaniel in real life, reminds Luli that she’s not better than actresses who do take the roles Luli’s determined not to take, “but we all know why you have to say you are.” And while Luli gives up twenty years of her life for a chance to break into the film industry, we also see multiple women who offer up their flesh in order to get out. Vo shows us a world—surely nobody living in the now times can relate!—that offers very few good choices, and the characters must choose what parts of themselves they’re willing to give up. Having it all was never an option.

All of this sounds terribly allegorical, and in a sense it is. To the best of my understanding (which has been formed entirely by the Coen brothers’ movie Hail Caesar and a few episodes of You Must Remember This), the Golden Age of Hollywood was a pretty dark time for everyone except straight white men, and it wasn’t much of a picnic for them either. Nghi Vo is far too good a writer, though, to slip into pure allegory. Siren Queen sends a chill down your spine precisely because the monkey’s-paw pacts and dark fae magic of Vo’s imagination map so cleanly onto the extractive and exploitative nightmare that was, and is, Hollywood. The people who made the machine go in those early days powered it with their bodies and their talent, often in the full understanding that they would be thrown aside when they ceased to be hot, alluring, and useful.

As a queer woman of color, Luli Wei is at particular risk of being thrown aside, and it’s no coincidence that her success arrives when she starts to play monsters. In the eyes of so many people in her industry, Luli’s monstrosity is inherent to her identity as an ambitious woman of color and daughter of immigrants. By refusing to accept the thin, confining space offered to people like her, Luli forces that space to broaden, forces her industry to make room for her. Even when she gets her big break as the siren queen, the role of monster offers its own set of perils and pitfalls: when a fire breaks out on set, her costume is so physically heavy that it comes close to preventing her from fleeing the flames. Nor can her own conscience ever be clear, as her career is predicated on a—there’s no other word for it—monstrous theft that she perpetrates against her own sister.

Siren Queen is the clearest illustration you could ask for that Nghi Vo won’t be a one-hit wonder of a novelist. It’s a book packed with memorably spiky characters, keen insight, luxuriant prose, and eerie fantastical detail that lingers in the mind like a vividly unsettling dream.