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just_read_on 's review for:
The Siren
by Kiera Cass
3.5 stars to this book.
3 stars goes to the romance between Akinli and Khalen. The half star goes to the rest of the novel, and the 1.5 stars that the book did not receive go to the strangeness that I felt while reading the book.
Kiera Cass is one of my favorite authors. I met her just last week and she's just as amazing as her writing is. I loved her writing in this book, because always her writing style and talent will be something I adore. I wanted to rate this 5 out of 5 stars like her Selection series but I couldn't let my bias of her favorite series interfere with my review on this book. And now that I've met her, I felt that an honest opinion is what she deserved, along with my honest review. I had to pretend that she's never wrote the Selection series for me to rate it 3.5 stars. It was hard. It was not as great as I had hoped unfortunately. The story development didn't seem thought out enough, and I didn't like how quick things happened even though I know there is only so much that can be done in a span of 327 pages. But still, it was a quick, cute read, and it also made me a bit emotional at one point, I'm not even going to lie.
SPOILERS BELOW
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First off, I want to start with the things that I didn't necessary like about the book.
In the beginning, Khaleen is with her family on a ship( or boat or something ), and all of the passengers are lured into the water by Sirens. Khaleen begs to live, even when she doesn't know what her new definition of "living" is going to be. This was my first turn off of the book; if I were her, and I just saw my parents practically drown themselves, I wouldn't want to drown either, but there's just something odd about the fact that WHEN she begged to live, the emotional loss of her family didn't even seem to steer or affect her at all and I'm not sure if that's because the power of the Sirens prevented her or something but it felt a bit unrealistic. Yeah yeah, it's a fiction novel but still. I think outside the box.
Next, I was EXTREMELY turned off by the fact that the Ocean SPOKE. Literally, the ocean spoke to the girls and to Khalen. And I couldn't help but cringe when the Ocean told Khalen that She "loved her". Maybe this wouldn't have bothered me if it were a children's novel but...it made me feel a bit uncomfortable I guess?
Third, I for some reason did not, in anyway, like the character Padma. I disliked her so much that while typing this I had to go back and check if that was even her name. There was just something about her that made me feel unsympathetic when the reader was supposed to be sympathetic.
Now let me talk about the positive stuff, because really, the outweighed my negatives.
My favorite thing about this book is, in one one...AKINLI.
Oh my gosh, Akinli was barely even in the book. He probably had about..thirty pages of screen time and I loved him the most. He was sweet and funny and when he got that picture of Khalen and he was like "you're pretty" I squealed. He was so very sweet and he sounded so very cute and I so very much loved him.
My other favorite thing about this of course was Khalen. Just like America, Kiera always seems to make it, at least in my case, where her main character related to the reader. It was so easy to connect to her and that made the experience of reading this so much more enjoyable and what caused me to read the last two hundred pages in one sitting.
Overall, I wish I could've given this book five stars, but I didn't love it as much as I'd hoped. But it was still enjoyable
3 stars goes to the romance between Akinli and Khalen. The half star goes to the rest of the novel, and the 1.5 stars that the book did not receive go to the strangeness that I felt while reading the book.
Kiera Cass is one of my favorite authors. I met her just last week and she's just as amazing as her writing is. I loved her writing in this book, because always her writing style and talent will be something I adore. I wanted to rate this 5 out of 5 stars like her Selection series but I couldn't let my bias of her favorite series interfere with my review on this book. And now that I've met her, I felt that an honest opinion is what she deserved, along with my honest review. I had to pretend that she's never wrote the Selection series for me to rate it 3.5 stars. It was hard. It was not as great as I had hoped unfortunately. The story development didn't seem thought out enough, and I didn't like how quick things happened even though I know there is only so much that can be done in a span of 327 pages. But still, it was a quick, cute read, and it also made me a bit emotional at one point, I'm not even going to lie.
SPOILERS BELOW
•
•
•
First off, I want to start with the things that I didn't necessary like about the book.
In the beginning, Khaleen is with her family on a ship( or boat or something ), and all of the passengers are lured into the water by Sirens. Khaleen begs to live, even when she doesn't know what her new definition of "living" is going to be. This was my first turn off of the book; if I were her, and I just saw my parents practically drown themselves, I wouldn't want to drown either, but there's just something odd about the fact that WHEN she begged to live, the emotional loss of her family didn't even seem to steer or affect her at all and I'm not sure if that's because the power of the Sirens prevented her or something but it felt a bit unrealistic. Yeah yeah, it's a fiction novel but still. I think outside the box.
Next, I was EXTREMELY turned off by the fact that the Ocean SPOKE. Literally, the ocean spoke to the girls and to Khalen. And I couldn't help but cringe when the Ocean told Khalen that She "loved her". Maybe this wouldn't have bothered me if it were a children's novel but...it made me feel a bit uncomfortable I guess?
Third, I for some reason did not, in anyway, like the character Padma. I disliked her so much that while typing this I had to go back and check if that was even her name. There was just something about her that made me feel unsympathetic when the reader was supposed to be sympathetic.
Now let me talk about the positive stuff, because really, the outweighed my negatives.
My favorite thing about this book is, in one one...AKINLI.
Oh my gosh, Akinli was barely even in the book. He probably had about..thirty pages of screen time and I loved him the most. He was sweet and funny and when he got that picture of Khalen and he was like "you're pretty" I squealed. He was so very sweet and he sounded so very cute and I so very much loved him.
My other favorite thing about this of course was Khalen. Just like America, Kiera always seems to make it, at least in my case, where her main character related to the reader. It was so easy to connect to her and that made the experience of reading this so much more enjoyable and what caused me to read the last two hundred pages in one sitting.
Overall, I wish I could've given this book five stars, but I didn't love it as much as I'd hoped. But it was still enjoyable