Teens Review: The Siren by Kiera Cass

You may know Kiera Cass from some of her previous work, like The Selection Series, or her newest novel, The Betrothed. But her first book, published in 2009, is just as infatuating.

The Siren is about, well, a siren. Her name is Kahlen, and every time she speaks even a whisper of a word, it causes anyone who hears her to throw themselves into the ocean, as if they had no will of their own.

Kahlen isn’t like her fellow siren sisters. She prefers the solitude of her room over the parties and clubs that her friends go to. Sometimes she visits the Ocean, her mother whom she feeds by the annual ship sinking. Kahlen is tortured by all the lives she’s taken over the years for the sake of the Ocean. She loves Her but her thoughts are consumed by the faces of everyone she’s drowned…that is until she meets Akinli.

For all her siren life, Kahlen never spoke to anyone other than her sisters, but when she meets Akinli, everything seems to change. Sure she can’t use her words, but there are other ways of communicating. And soon, she fears she is beginning to fall in love.

I think this is one of my favourites from Cass. She somehow entwines the feelings of Kahlen into the feelings of my own. Everything which she experiences is something new as if she’s been daydreaming and suddenly, she is awake and alive. Waking up is a painful thing, especially if you’re waking up to something that can so easily slip away.

The Siren will take you to a world that seems far even though it’s just out of reach. Follow the heart of a girl who once didn’t know she was capable of such wonderful, terrible things.

-Grace De Prophetis