Siren Queen
- 237
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Siren Queen” is a seductive, dark-edged fantasy of old Hollywood, where Nghi Vo turns the studio system into a place of real monsters. Luli Wei refuses the stereotyped parts on offer and chooses to play the monsters instead, facing racism, sexism and queerphobia along the way. Its prose is rich and its queer heart open, though some readers find the heroine hard to like and the ending more strange than satisfying.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Siren Queen (2022) is a historical fantasy novel by Nghi Vo set in a magical 1930s Los Angeles. The story follows an aspiring actor known as Luli Wei, who hopes to achieve immortality through stardom. Hollywood provides obstacles in the form of racism, sexism, queerphobia, and dark magic. Luli rejects stereotypical roles on-screen and off, instead embracing the power of playing movie monsters. The book was Vo's first novel to be written, but the second to be published, preceded by The Chosen and the Beautiful (2021) in a similar magical universe. It received positive reviews in speculative fiction venues, and was a 2023 finalist for the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award, and the Ignyte Award.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 81 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 36% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 7.5 | 81 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is Siren Queen?
It has 237 pages — shorter than 98% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 7.8, the closest to this book.
