Helpful Score: 2
Luce is used to being the new kid in school and to her books being her only friends. She's even used to avoiding her drunk abusive uncle. One day though his abuse goes too far and Luce lets go of her humanity. When she wakes up she is a mermaid, part of a tribe, and has the most beautiful and powerful voice of them all. Too bad mermaids take lives with their voices.
I haven't read a mermaid story since H.C. Andersen's Little Mermaid and seeing this book on NetGalley decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did. Luce is an avid reader so while the story is definitely YA the vocabulary isn't simplistic but still feels natural, without the effect of thesaurus overuse. I really liked the narrative voice for how lyrical and visual it is. Singing is a very important part of the bulk of this book and Ms. Porter did a wonderful job describing the mermaids' singing in a way that wasn't flat or confusing. I actually felt like I knew exactly what their songs sounded like and could understand the almost physical nature of the songs.
There's a stark contrast between the beauty of the mermaids, the world they live in, the exhilaration of their strength and speed, the magic of their voices and the reason why they are all there. It's very dark, actually, because they are all teenagers, the oldest is only 16, but they've all lived a life of pain and abuse and when it all became too much they left the human world but didn't really die. I enjoyed having the weight of this fact to balance the general immaturity of the mermaids, it helped give depth to the story that otherwise could have felt too much like "mean girls gone wild", especially in the second half of the book. There is also the interesting concept that the girls who had no voice in their human lives, were never heard and always disregarded now had voices that could not be ignored.
Lost Voices is the first in a trilogy and it is the beginning of what I think will be a theme arc of coming to terms with who you are, learning to take control of your life, forgiving past hurts and friendship and it's good to know that this book is only the beginning because the way it ended was a bit confusing to me. It was so abrupt that for a moment I thought that I received an incomplete file but the more I thought about the ending after I confirmed that the file was indeed complete the more it made sense. The external conflict here was so strong and volatile that I've almost forgotten all about the importance of the internal conflict while it is the internal conflict that pushed the story forward from the very beginning. Throughout the book Luce struggled with having become a mermaid and signing ships to their death, she struggled with the power of her voice and with the fact that her father most likely died because of mermaids but in the end she comes to appreciate her new world and the beauty of it, she is determined to choose her destiny and grows up just enough to take on the out of control mermaids in the next book. At least I hope she'll take them on because with Anais at the helm those girls have most definitely gone wild.
I would recommend this book to those who enjoy fantasy YA, mermaids and don't mind a protagonist who's not a lara croft type.
ARC of this book was obtained through NetGalley.com
You can find more of my reviews at bibliophilescorner.blogspot.com
I haven't read a mermaid story since H.C. Andersen's Little Mermaid and seeing this book on NetGalley decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did. Luce is an avid reader so while the story is definitely YA the vocabulary isn't simplistic but still feels natural, without the effect of thesaurus overuse. I really liked the narrative voice for how lyrical and visual it is. Singing is a very important part of the bulk of this book and Ms. Porter did a wonderful job describing the mermaids' singing in a way that wasn't flat or confusing. I actually felt like I knew exactly what their songs sounded like and could understand the almost physical nature of the songs.
There's a stark contrast between the beauty of the mermaids, the world they live in, the exhilaration of their strength and speed, the magic of their voices and the reason why they are all there. It's very dark, actually, because they are all teenagers, the oldest is only 16, but they've all lived a life of pain and abuse and when it all became too much they left the human world but didn't really die. I enjoyed having the weight of this fact to balance the general immaturity of the mermaids, it helped give depth to the story that otherwise could have felt too much like "mean girls gone wild", especially in the second half of the book. There is also the interesting concept that the girls who had no voice in their human lives, were never heard and always disregarded now had voices that could not be ignored.
Lost Voices is the first in a trilogy and it is the beginning of what I think will be a theme arc of coming to terms with who you are, learning to take control of your life, forgiving past hurts and friendship and it's good to know that this book is only the beginning because the way it ended was a bit confusing to me. It was so abrupt that for a moment I thought that I received an incomplete file but the more I thought about the ending after I confirmed that the file was indeed complete the more it made sense. The external conflict here was so strong and volatile that I've almost forgotten all about the importance of the internal conflict while it is the internal conflict that pushed the story forward from the very beginning. Throughout the book Luce struggled with having become a mermaid and signing ships to their death, she struggled with the power of her voice and with the fact that her father most likely died because of mermaids but in the end she comes to appreciate her new world and the beauty of it, she is determined to choose her destiny and grows up just enough to take on the out of control mermaids in the next book. At least I hope she'll take them on because with Anais at the helm those girls have most definitely gone wild.
I would recommend this book to those who enjoy fantasy YA, mermaids and don't mind a protagonist who's not a lara croft type.
ARC of this book was obtained through NetGalley.com
You can find more of my reviews at bibliophilescorner.blogspot.com
Helpful Score: 1
I got an advanced reading copy of this book through netgalley.com. I was very excited to read this book about mermaids from debut author Sarah Porter. This is the first in a trilogy (which I didn't know when I picked it up to read, my bad). After reading it I was bit disappointed in how dark the story was and how abruptly it ended. That being said the writing was beautifully done for the most part.
Luce is fourteen and has had a tough life. Her mother is dead, her dad is missing, and she can never seem to fit in at school. Now she is living with her uncle who beats her when he isn't busy ignoring her. One night on a cliff in town things get out of hand; her uncle beats her and tries to rape her. Luce escapes but then succumbs to the cold on the side of the cliff. She awakes to find herself in the ocean...she is a mermaid. Now she must navigate mermaid politics and do her best to not completely give in to the urge to sing seafarers to their death.
This is a very, very dark book. I am not sure what age group Porter is aiming for. It seems like a book more appropriate to the older YA crowd, but the main character is only 14 years old. The descriptions never get extremely explicit but there is a lot of abuse, sexual and otherwise in this book. All of the girls that are mermaids become mermaids because of something dark or life threatening happening to them. So, all of the girls have history of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Subjects such as rape, suicide are dealt with throughout.
While I enjoyed the fact that mermaid mythology was combined with that of sirens singing seafarers to their death, I was a bit disappointed at Luce's time with the mermaids. The group of mermaids that she joins is not unlike high school; there is a lot of posturing between the girls, they form cliques, and cat-fight a lot. I felt like the middle of the book was one big cat-fight between Luce and the Queen mermaid and it was somewhat boring. At points the writing style is very beautiful though and you can really feel Luce's love and wonder for the ocean.
That being said there are some really interesting elements brought into this book. There is the mystery of the larva that are not quite mermaids and the laws the mermaids are supposed to follow (no interaction with humans beyond singing them to death). The implications of these elements could be interesting, but they were not explored at all in this book. In fact the book pretty much leaves everything unresolved and ends right in the middle of a scene.
Overall it was an okay story. The book is beautifully written, incorporates some interesting elements, and I loved reading about mermaids. It is a very dark book though and deals a lot of sexual and physical abuse, which is not my favorite subject to read about. I thought the interaction between the mermaids was shallow and catty, and nothing is resolved in this book...things are only introduced. At this point I am not sure whether or not I will read the next book. This book was pretty depressing and I absolutely hate it when books start a story and end without, well, any sort of actual ending.
Luce is fourteen and has had a tough life. Her mother is dead, her dad is missing, and she can never seem to fit in at school. Now she is living with her uncle who beats her when he isn't busy ignoring her. One night on a cliff in town things get out of hand; her uncle beats her and tries to rape her. Luce escapes but then succumbs to the cold on the side of the cliff. She awakes to find herself in the ocean...she is a mermaid. Now she must navigate mermaid politics and do her best to not completely give in to the urge to sing seafarers to their death.
This is a very, very dark book. I am not sure what age group Porter is aiming for. It seems like a book more appropriate to the older YA crowd, but the main character is only 14 years old. The descriptions never get extremely explicit but there is a lot of abuse, sexual and otherwise in this book. All of the girls that are mermaids become mermaids because of something dark or life threatening happening to them. So, all of the girls have history of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Subjects such as rape, suicide are dealt with throughout.
While I enjoyed the fact that mermaid mythology was combined with that of sirens singing seafarers to their death, I was a bit disappointed at Luce's time with the mermaids. The group of mermaids that she joins is not unlike high school; there is a lot of posturing between the girls, they form cliques, and cat-fight a lot. I felt like the middle of the book was one big cat-fight between Luce and the Queen mermaid and it was somewhat boring. At points the writing style is very beautiful though and you can really feel Luce's love and wonder for the ocean.
That being said there are some really interesting elements brought into this book. There is the mystery of the larva that are not quite mermaids and the laws the mermaids are supposed to follow (no interaction with humans beyond singing them to death). The implications of these elements could be interesting, but they were not explored at all in this book. In fact the book pretty much leaves everything unresolved and ends right in the middle of a scene.
Overall it was an okay story. The book is beautifully written, incorporates some interesting elements, and I loved reading about mermaids. It is a very dark book though and deals a lot of sexual and physical abuse, which is not my favorite subject to read about. I thought the interaction between the mermaids was shallow and catty, and nothing is resolved in this book...things are only introduced. At this point I am not sure whether or not I will read the next book. This book was pretty depressing and I absolutely hate it when books start a story and end without, well, any sort of actual ending.
