A siren must choose between the curse that defines her and a chance at love. Lexi is cursed. Following in the footsteps of every woman on her mother's side of the family, she's a siren whose song lures unsuspecting victims to their watery deaths. Each day she goes to school like a normal teenager, and each night she must swim to stay alive. Lexi wants desperately to be a normal girl, but she cuts herself off, becoming an ice queen to keep from hurting the people she cares about. Then she finds herself caught between a new boy at school who may have the power to melt her icy exterior and a handsome water spirit who says he can break Lexi's curse if she gives up everything else. Lexi is faced with the hardest decision of her life. Will she learn that love finds a way to overcome even the strongest of curses? Ripple is a sea-ravaged tale of melancholy beauty, and the choices one girl makes between land and waves, love and freedom, her future--and her heart.
Amazon.com
Lexi seems like your average teen, aside from one major difference: at night she transforms into a sea siren trapped by one seriously awful curse --- either she must lure men to their deaths or be left in unbearable pain herself. Not wanting to be the cause of anyone's death, Lexi isolates herself from the rest of the world as much as possible. Each night she swims in a hidden lake instead of the ocean. If she doesn't swim every day, she becomes feverish, experiences muscle cramps / a knotted up stomach, or the sensation of shards of glass in her skin.
A lonely life, but she's making it work... until the day she meets Cole, the best friend of the last guy she let herself love...and accidentally kill.There's also Erik, a new student at Lexi's high school who acts as if he knows her secret. Oh, and then there's Sienna, Lexi's once best friend and sister of Steven (that last love of Lexi's... bit of crimp in a friendship, I imagine) who turns out to be a pretty terrible person no one in their right mind would want to continue a friendship with.
I was really digging the first 3/4ths of this story! The writing isn't always top notch (there was one line that read "there's so many holes in my plan it's like I wrote it down on Swiss cheese" that got an eyeroll out of me) but the plot is fun. It's a YA novel, so some level of teen angst can be expected, but for the most part the characters were decently developed enough to keep me invested. That last 1/4 though... there was a distinct shift. The interactions between Lexi, Cole and Erik start veering into over-the-top melodrama.
I liked the siren theme, just wished it would have been referenced more, a little more sea legend vibe worked in. It is there, but the bulk of this leans on just average teen romance / drama / backstabbing. As long as you don't go in expecting too much, it's a perfectly entertaining beach read!
"Anyone can see you have a wall bigger than the one in China. You're just kind of ... unapproachable. It's not like someone can catch your eye and smile if you're constantly looking down at the ground. And it felt like to talk to you directly was to risk going down in flames."
I blink. I guess I never realized just how effective I've been at keeping people at arm's length.
He turns to look at me, and with how close we're sitting, our noses are just inches apart. His voice lowers. "But I guess you're worth the risk." He leans in slowly, and I close my eyes.
Once finished, I had this feeling like maybe the book as a whole suffered from being a little too short? Or perhaps that was intentional? There were parts of the plot I would've liked to have seen developed a little further, but on the other hand, having that sensation of not knowing more about the characters (their history and such) in a way does work with where Hubbard decides to drop the closing curtain.
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