In “The Siren,” the handsome, famous, wealthy, charismatic, sexy Cole Powers is shooting a film on a small Caribbean island. The writer-director is Cole’s estranged son, Jackson. And the movie also stars Cole’s ex-wife, the actress Stella Rivers. Along for the ride is producer Taylor Wasserman (also estranged from her father), influencer Madison Kasabian, and Stella’s assistant, the very realistically named Felicity Fox. And half of them want to kill one of the others.
I chose this book because although I usually prefer sci-fi and fantasy, I also like good, gossipy chick lit every once in a while. Unfortunately, while this book is definitely gossipy chick lit, it’s not very good. The writing was pretty lazy and so was the editing. For example, our villain is the most one-dimensional character I’ve seen in a long time. They are mean, because they are mean. And they are mean and abusive to everyone. Everyone. And we’re given no reason other than they are a method actor and are mean.
The influencer suffers the same treatment at the hands of the author. She is shallow and mean and beauty obsessed. I guess because she is an influencer. And I guess she’s an influencer because she’s shallow, mean, and beauty obsessed. The way that she’s written, her character brings absolutely nothing to the story.
Even though I didn’t always love the writing, some of the themes were pretty good. And a couple of the main characters (two) were fleshed out nicely and were interesting because of it. I also thought the mystery surrounding who wants to kill who and why was pretty good. There were some unexpected twists and turns once you get past the ham-fisted villainy.
Final Rating: 2.5 stars and I wouldn’t recommend.
