“Siren Song” by Lynn Vogel is a fictional story about a woman being thrown off a ship she wasn’t supposed to be on in the first place. Although the storyline seemed relatively interesting, the story was choppy and nonsensical, confusing the reader on more than one occasion.  “Siren Song” starts out with the main character shrieking as ‘calloused hands groped every inch’ of her body, confusing the reader as to what is going on. Apparently she had snuck aboard a ship she was not supposed to be on. As a result, her father was angry at her and decided to kill her as punishment. Aside from being completely illogical and unrealistic, this is so over the top it is ridiculous.
After much screaming, the woman is finally thrown overboard, where immediately a beautiful woman with a fish tail saves her. Instead of explaining the main character’s shock and disbelief over her sudden ability to talk underwater, the author chooses to take the easy way out by writing the following sentence. “‘Thank you for saving me,’ I said without thinking twice about the fact that I was communicating with someone underwater.” I’m sure the first thing anyone would think about if they were talking underwater was the fact that they were talking underwater, but the woman in “Siren Song” processes this incredibly quickly.  After the main character is saved by the mermaid-woman, she is suddenly also one of the beautiful fish people. This is shown when the story says, “It was at this moment that I noticed my legs had turned into a magnificent fish tail.” Leaving the reader wondering just how the woman transformed into a half fish, the woman goes on to drown every person on the boat she was thrown off of, including her father. She accomplishes this by singing, and as it says in the story, “The men heard me and were mesmerized. One by one they jumped into the water to be closer to my heavenly sound.”  If the events in the story were real and it were possible to transform into singing seafood after being tossed overboard a ship, I think I’d be happy on land.