Love is a risk worth taking.

Years ago, Kahlen was rescued from drowning by the Ocean. To repay her debt, she has served as a Siren ever since, using her voice to lure countless strangers to their deaths. Though a single word from Kahlen can kill, she can’t resist spending her days on land, watching ordinary people and longing for the day when she will be able to speak and laugh and live freely among them again.

Kahlen is resigned to finishing her sentence in solitude…until she meets Akinli. Handsome, caring, and kind, Akinli is everything Kahlen ever dreamed of. And though she can’t talk to him, they soon forge a connection neither of them can deny…and Kahlen doesn’t want to.

Falling in love with a human breaks all the Ocean’s rules, and if the Ocean discovers Kahlen’s feelings, she’ll be forced to leave Akinli for good. But for the first time in a lifetime of following the rules, Kahlen is determined to follow her heart. – Goodreads

Yeah, I wasn’t feeling this one. I picked it up for a light romantic fantasy read, but it just didn’t dazzle me or do it for me. At all. I read The Selection series and enjoyed it for its light-hearted Bachelor-esque feel, and I was hoping for something similar out of this. The Siren just didn’t deliver.

I’m going to start with what I liked about it first — for one, I enjoyed the writing style. The word choice, flow, etc was done well. I really enjoyed the CONCEPT of the story — that the Ocean must consume souls to survive, and to do so She saves certain unlucky victims (female, unmarried, not mothers) from drowning to become her Sirens, who sing the deadly song and lure those unlucky souls to their deaths. The Ocean must survive in order to provide the masses with food, etc. Those chosen victims must dedicate 100 years of servitude to the Ocean in exchange for their life. I don’t know much about siren folklore, but this was definitely new to me and I enjoyed that piece of it.

I did not enjoy the instalove and whiny MC. I was also annoyed at everyone’s names, specifically the MC and her love interest. Kahlen and Akinli? This book is set in present-day, Kahlen “died” in the 40s…these aren’t typical names, and for some reason that really annoyed me. And the instalove. I. Can’t. Even. They meet. They decide to hang out. They make cake (with about 9000 mentions of effing almond extract). They fall in love. Wait, what? That escalated quickly. Don’t even get me started on when Kahlen washes up on a tiny town in Maine where Akinli is from (they met in MIAMI, ok) and he doesn’t even ask questions. He just takes her in and they go on a date. WTF? WTF.

During the times that those two aren’t together, Kahlen is obnoxiously depressed and withdrawn — super boring to read about.

Anyway, rather and drivel on about how much I didn’t like this, I’ll just leave my 2/5 rating here and move on with my life.