I choose this scene in The Siren because it encapsulates so well why I love Kiera Cass's books. She is great at writing sweet, lovable scenes that make my teenager soul jump with happiness (shh I still have it and it will never go away). And in this book, that's an accomplishment even bigger since the protagonist, Kahlen, is a siren who can't talk with her love interest, Akinli, because her voice is deadly to humans so she needs to communicate through her body and her expressions.

This scene has everything, a cute scenario of a dream date (I mean I'm terrible at baking but a cake is a cake and who doesn't want some in a date yummy!), Kahlen trying to come up with a career for him turns out to be deep and thoughtful and let us see the characters' personalities and the great chemistry between them.

[...] I stared at this boy who I admittedly hardly knew. Yet I felt as if I'd learned so much about him, like, if anyone asked, I could outline his entire personality. He was so warm, so open, so full of simple joy. What had I done to catch his attention, to have him interested in not just my looks, but my thoughts?

I could tell he was actually eager to hear my opinion, so I focused on his question. I could imagine him as an advocate for an abused child or an aide for someone with mental illness, the only person in their whirlwind lives with the capacity to hold them down to the earth. I wrote on the whiteboard again.

"Social work?" he asked. I applauded.

He laughed, a sound more like music than anything I made. "I'm intrigued. Okay Kahlen, I will research this field and get back to you."

He glanced down at the cake batter, then raised the whisk and held it out to me, dripping. "Does this look right?" I touched the whisk, then licked the batter off my finger.

Akinli's warm blue eyes held mine as sweetness spread across my tongue. It was perfect I gave an enthusiastic nod, and he reached to taste it himself. "Hey, not bad for my first cake, yeah?" [...]