Monday 29 July 2013

Review: The Siren by Kiera Cass

The Siren

Title: The Siren
Author: Kiera Cass
Series: None
Publisher: iUniverse
Publication Date: July 1st 2009
Source: Bought
Description: "You must never do anything that might expose our secret. This means that, in general, you cannot form close bonds with humans. You can speak to us, and you can always commune with the Ocean, but you are deadly to humans. You are, essentially, a weapon. A very beautiful weapon. I won't lie to you, it can be a lonely existence, but once you are done, you get to live. All you have to give, for now, is obedience and time..." 

The same speech has been given hundreds of times to hundreds of beautiful girls who enter the sisterhood of sirens. Kahlen has lived by these rules for years now, patiently waiting for the life she can call her own. But when Akinli, a human, enters her world, she can't bring herself to live by the rules anymore. Suddenly the life she's been waiting for doesn't seem nearly as important as the one she's living now.


Rating: 2 of 5 stars

Thoughts:

“You must never do anything that might expose our secret.”

The Siren follows Kahlen, who was supposed to die 81 years ago, but instead became a Siren. About once a year, she has to lure humans to their death to feed the Ocean by singing with her Siren voice. If she serves the Ocean one hundred years, she gets a full life of her own after that. But because her voice is deadly, and she is a weapon, it’s impossible for her to bond with humans – so she gets very lonely. Until she meets Akinli, and falls in love with him.

So, I thought this novel held a lot of potential. There aren’t many books written about Sirens and the subject basically begs for a kick-ass, flawed heroine. I mean – your voice is deadly. You’re beautiful. You can practically rule the world. Unfortunately, this novel fell short for me.

It starts off quite slow. In the first 100 pages or so, not much happens except Kahlen constantly saying how she’s so very lonely while travelling to all the awesome places (Brazilia and Paris, anyone?). Because Kahlen is only whining about how she’s so lonely and she hates the Ocean and her life, I didn’t really like her. At all. Honestly, I was expecting a kick-ass heroine who enjoyed her power maybe a little too much, instead of, well, Kahlen.

Fortunately, the novel picks up after Kahlen decides to work with the hearing impaired. This made me like her a little more because she was finally acting and doing something that could even be described as ‘noble’. Then something happens (not saying what due to spoilers) and Kahlen gets very angry with the Ocean, refusing to speak to Her anymore and even be in Her anymore. It’s then that she meets Akinli, who is achingly (see what I did there? No?) beautiful and takes her to his home, while she pretends not to be able to speak and suffer from memory loss. And then they fall in love.

This is where my real issues with this book lie. Because there’s insta-love. A particularly bad case of insta-love. I quote:

I want to stay with you forever, I thought. I love you. I love no one like I love you. I’d give you anything you wanted.

This is after they’ve spent two days together.

I don’t know how many times I’ve said this and how many times I’m going to, but this just isn’t realistic. I mean, how can you love someone that much after two days? I just don’t get it. And even worse, their relationship is co-dependent too. They’re both like “I’d die without you!” No you won’t. 

And yes, maybe the insta-love can be explained, or least Kahlen’s part of it. She has been lonely for 81 years, so it could be that she would immediately think she loved someone if he shows any kind of interest in her. However, nowhere in the novel is being hinted at this, and it wouldn’t explain Akinli’s love for Kahlen. So sadly, I think it is just insta-love.

Also, I hate how Kahlen was at times a mini Bella Swan. Like in this passage:

Akinli had just pulled back from me, and the look on his face… He looked like he truly couldn’t believe how lucky he was; that it was beyond all reason that he should get to kiss me. Hadn’t he known it was the other way around?

If you replace Akinli’s name with Edwards, this could have been straight out of Twilight.

And there’s something else, which I have been seeing a lot lately: the sexual assault. Why must the femininity of the main character always be objectified? Why isn’t is possible to write a book with a female lead without a scene like this? Especially if the scene really has no use at all.

“Well,” he thought aloud, “if you’re not going to scream…” He ripped my shirt, Akinli’s shirt, open.

And Kahlen doesn’t want to scream or say anything because it might kill her attacker -_- Please, please, if you ever get assaulted, scream. Scream and kick and do anything to save yourself. Even if it hurts your attacker. Especially if it hurts your attacker. Please.

The ending and Kahlen’s sister Sirens were the only things I genuinely liked. I really loved Ifama, even though her appearance in the book is very short.

All in all, a huge disappointment. I saw all these glowing five-star reviews, but sadly, I didn’t like it at all, due to the main character, the nature of the romance and the unnecessary assault.

3 comments:

  1. I have always been curious about Cass' other works, but I am not really interested in this one anymore with all the reviews I've seen.

    Thanks for the helpful review! <33

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh gawd, insta love?! Blah! And it does have a lot of promise w/the subject matter but...eh...definitely will be passing on this one!

    New follower via bloglovin :)

    Dee @ Dee's Reads

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...