A 2016 Throwback: A Review of The Siren by Kiera Cass

Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.

I have reached the point of the year where I refuse to buy any new books as I know I will soon be gifted lots of lovely new reads. Which means I have been scavenging my bookcases for reads I have yet to cover. That’s when I stumbled across a book from back when I was a teen. 2016 to be exact. Honestly this title is quite the throwback.

Please give a warm welcome to The Siren by Kiera Cass!

As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you’ve read any other review on this site then you will know I simply love to spoil the entirety of the books I review. This is your one and only warning. I also have a very quick content warning. This book deals primarily with loss and grief. There is a lot of tragic, sudden death in The Siren so please be prepared for it. Also I would argue that this story is about abusive relationships and will be discussing this in length in my review. With that, let’s get to the synopsis.

In the 1930s, the Ocean saved Kahlen from drowning. In exchange for sparing her life, the Ocean turns Kahlen into a siren. For 100 years Kahlen is tasked with caring for the Ocean with her fellow sirens. How is she to do this? Why, sing a magic song to sink ships and kill everyone on board of course. But the good news is Kahlen will never age, she will stay young and beautiful until her 100 years of service are up and only then will she age, and most importantly, no harm or sickness can befall her.

For 80 years Kahlen serves the Ocean without fail. A part of her dies a little every time she commits mass murder, but she does as the Ocean says as this is the deal she made. There are other rules she and her fellow sirens have to follow as well. Mainly they are not allowed to speak to humans as hearing a siren’s voice will cause a person to end their own life. So Kahlen and her fellow sirens move all around the world and keep to themselves.

Then one day in Miami, Kahlen is spending her day in a college library when she meets Akinli. Kahlen falls hard for him. He’s perfect in her eyes, he sees her for her and not just as a pretty face. But there are still 20 years left on her sentence as a siren, there’s no possible way she and Akinli could ever be together. But try they will. Even though the Ocean will fight her hardest to keep them apart and these attempts could result in death. Can Akinli and Kahlen’s relationship survive? Can they themselves survive? Or will the Ocean destroy their love? Find out in The Siren.  

In all honesty, The Siren is a lot better than I remember it being. Back in 2016, when it was reprinted by Harper Teen, I instantly bought The Siren because I was obsessed with Kiera Cass’s The Selection series. But after reading the book, I did not like it. Objectively, The Siren is not a good book. It is far from perfect. Back in 2016 I absolutely hated it simply because I thought The Selection was far better. In 2025 I can say my initial reaction to this book was a complete overreaction. So let’s crack in.

Firstly, The Siren is actually a story about the stages of grief and abusive relationships. I want to start with my latter take. As much as Kahlen is the main character, the Ocean is an entity that exists on every page of the story even when not physically present. Kahlen often thinks of the Ocean, her thoughts being both positive and negative though I would argue said thoughts lean more negative, and Kahlen fears the Ocean ever finding out about her relationship and love for Akinli. Not to mention, the Ocean pretty much owns Kahlen and is incredibly possessive of the girl.

Really do not like the actions of the Ocean.

Additionally, the relationship the Ocean has with the other sirens is vastly different from the one she has with Kahlen. While the Ocean wants to know virtually everything going on in Kahlen’s life, she could care less about the others. It’s noted that other sirens have engaged in hook up culture in the past and the Ocean doesn’t care, but the moment Kahlen begins developing a relationship with someone who is not another siren or the Ocean herself, the Ocean interferes. None of what I’ve stated sounds like a healthy relationship. Now I don’t believe Kiera Cass was really trying to add anything to the conversation surrounding abusive relationships, but she is featuring problematic behaviors and showing young teen readers what to look out for and hopefully avoid which I greatly appreciate.

I did mention The Siren is also an allegory for the five stages of grief. What Kahlen is truly grieving depends on the reader. That could be her human life, her family, or her relationship with Akinli; though the last option fits the least as Akinli and Kahlen do get a happy ending. Personally, and for the purposes of this review, I believe Kahlen to be grieving her human life. Not matter what topic is chosen, Kahlen goes through the five stages of grief throughout the course of the book. Near the start, when she first meets Akinli and tries to have a relationship with him, she denies her current reality of being a siren and how she is unable to be in a proper relationship with anyone. Various times throughout the story Kahlen becomes angry at the Ocean and being a siren; she notably throws all her belongings into a waterway at one point. A major depressive state follows before she and the other sirens begin literally bargaining with the Ocean for Kahlen’s human life back. As far as acceptance goes, well that’s just Kahlen receiving her happy ending. This is a very on the nose allegory, but I’m not mad about it.

The Siren is a lot deeper than I originally thought. Reading it again as an adult certainly helped me to see the story in a different light. That being said, The Siren has its faults. Namely with Kahlen’s character arc and her relationship with Akinli. First of all, I have never cared for love at first sight relationships. I don’t believe in love at first sight, it’s not realistic, and thus Kahlen and Akinli’s relationship is unrealistic to me. The pair go on one date that lasts maybe two hours, they only ever learn surface level things about each other, the deepest they ever get is trauma dumping on each other about their dead parents. Realistically this is nothing more than puppy love. Plus the pair spend most of the book apart! Yet I’m supposed to believe it’s true love in the end because they're both dying? I don’t think so. This relationship is just not believable to me. A shame that this is mainly a romance novel.

And honestly, Kahlen is an extremely flat character. Despite reading over three hundred pages about her, I know nothing about her personality because she doesn’t really have one. In fairness she is going through all the stages of grief, but still. The only notable thing about Kahlen is her want to get married. That’s it. She has no desire to go out and find herself, no want to find a hobby or job that she’s passionate about, her only goal and want in life is to get married. Kahlen is just so bland. In the words of Louise Belcher, “if she was a spice, she would be flour.”

I fear The Siren has gotten a bad rap over the years. The reprinting was never going to live up to the hype and love of The Selection series thus leaving many fans of Kiera Cass feeling disappointed. Objectively, this is not a good book. It’s not well written nor is the story striking and Kahlen is perhaps the blandest main character written within the past decade. But The Siren has elements that go deeper than on initial glance. For that it gets some points in its favor.       

With that, I shall bid you all adieu. Thank you very much for joining me today, Book Nerds. I hope you had a lovely time here and I will see you all again next week with another new review. If you can’t wait that long then I highly suggest giving Reading Has Ruined My Life a follow over on Instagram (@ReadingHasRuinedMyLife). I post there almost daily so come back often to revel in literary goodness. You can also follow the blog on Twitter and BlueSky (@RHRMLBlog). If you would like something not related to books then check out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. The show stars me and two of my dearest friends as we talk about everything and anything. We’ve got episodes on ghosts, Scooby-Doo, Disney, bad 90’s wrestling, and so much more! You can currently listen to the show on Spotify and YouTube.

Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.

See y'all then, bye!