This past Spring, I taught a unit on contemporary feminist re-imaginings of the Classics and I sincerely wish I could have included Wake, Siren in my syllabus, as Nina MacLaughlin's retellings of tales from The Metamorphoses were as unflinching, cathartic, and ferociously feminist as I'd hoped they would be.

Fair warning: this is often a difficult read due to its explicit handling of sexual violence (given the source material, however, and the project undertaken by Wake, Siren, that was not a surprise for me) and MacLaughlin's prose is experimental, so if that isn't your bag, you may not enjoy this. That said, I appreciated MacLaughlin's style choices, as her beautiful, haunting prose, for me, comes the closest of any classics reimagining that I have read to truly capturing the primal, dreamlike experience of reading the ancients and Ovid in particular.

Some of the tales are stronger than others, but, on the whole, I found Wake, Siren a powerful collection performing interesting and important cultural work by reorienting the perspectives of many of the ravishings of The Metamorphoses (which several of Wake, Siren's heroines point out have been troublingly romanticized by Western culture for centuries) from the perspective of those brutalized by husbands, fathers, and the ever-capricious gods.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )

This was absolutely fantastic. A retelling of many of the tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in a very original and powerful way. I love how some of the stories have a contemporary setting. Not for the squeamish, these tales are brutal in their honesty and I was moved to tears by how beautifully they are told. Highly recommend! ( )

It's interesting to see a book so divisive as this with the reviews! I have to say, I DNFed it. Not because I wasn't enjoying it, per se, but in part because it suffers from what I struggle with Greek/Roman mythology to begin with--the stories all really start to sound the same. Namely Zeus (or other gods) raping like there's no tomorrow and women suffering the consequences. McLaughlin certainly makes the point that women have been dealing with violence and inequality since time immemorial; I appreciate the spin she takes on some of the stories; and it got me reading synopses of the original tales which I haven't had the interest in doing in years. But I got about halfway through and felt like I had gotten to the point of getting the gist of the collection. ( )

I pre-ordered this book despite my pickiness about short stories based about 90% on the cover. Plus the premise was pretty intriguing: giving voice to all the voiceless women of Ovid's Metamorphoses -- the monsters, the demi-goddesses, the brazen, the raped, the transfigured.

Make no mistake about it -- this is a difficult and disturbing book. MacLaughlin may give these women a voice, sometimes a backstory and sometimes a redemption/recovery story -- but none of that changes their fates -- no matter how much you may wish some miracle will let them dodge at the last moment -- give a different reply, choose a different forest to wander in, swallow their pride for one fateful instant. Metamorphoses doesn't treat women particularly well, and al of that is still here - all the rape, all the dismemberment, all the victim-blaming and abuse.

So what does change? Plenty. This is an experimental collection and each story is reimagined in a different way. Some maintain a timeless mythical/fairy-tale quality, others go farther afield -- one story mostly a form of typographic poetry/word art, one story told mostly through emails. Many of the women have modern, profanity-laced speech (though if anyone is justified to be a little sweary!) With such variety, some stories are bound to land better with certain readers than others. But the overall effect -- centering the woman's voice, changing up the forms, making them all just a little unfamiliar and new, is one of erasing the distance, of creating new empathy, of rage and fury. At this #metoo moment, at the way many of these women's stories have been romanticized for centuries, at the familiarity of all of it.

Difficult, but I found it ultimately rewarding. ( )

"Open the cabinet. Move the cinnamon. Move the nutmeg. Move the coriander, the cardamom pods, the cumin, the cloves. Move the small dark bottle of vanilla extract and the oregano and the garam masala you've only used twice. There, the small jar with whole leaves the length of your pink. Those are me, mine. I was the first of all the laurel trees, and my bay leaves still season your sauces and stews..."

Wake, Siren starts with a strong concept: a collection of short stories based on the minor characters of Greek mythologies. From Medusa to Daphne, MacLaughlin gives a voice to 34 of these nymphs, monsters, and minor goddesses. Her stories are filled with quiet rage and injustice, wistfulness and transformation, sadness and loss. Many of the stories deal with difficult topics such as rape, incest, and violence against women. Some of the reviewers have mentioned that the content is overly gratuitous and graphic; however, I would disagree as it grounds these myths in reality; there are women today who face the same issues and to write a sanitized version of these stories would be a great disservice to them.

There are a few standouts in the book, namely "Callisto," "Io," and "Pygmalion," but other stories feel redundant. To be fair, I find it hard to fault MacLaughlin for the repetitiveness of her writing as her source material is hardly original. Women in the ancient myths were portrayed very simply as objects of lust or warnings to others. Attract a husband's wandering eye, and you may develop bovine features overnight. Boast too loudly and an envious goddess might turn you into a spider. There are only so many ways the same story can be told. ( )