Lost Voices by Sarah Porter

Title: Lost Voices
Author: Sarah Porter
Publication: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (7/04/2011)
ISBN 9780547482507
Format: Hardcover ($16.99) 304 pages
Series: Yes. Trilogy.
Acquired: I received a digital copy of this book from netGalley.

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Fourteen-year-old Luce has had a tough life, but she reaches the depths of despair when she is assaulted and left on the cliffs outside of her grim, gray Alaskan fishing village. She expects to die when she tumbles into the icy waves below, but instead undergoes an astonishing transformation and becomes a mermaid.

A tribe of mermaids finds Luce and welcomes her in—all of them, like her, lost girls who surrendered their humanity in the darkest moments of their lives. Luce is thrilled with her new life until she discovers the catch: the mermaids feel an uncontrollable desire to drown seafarers, using their enchanted voices to lure ships into the rocks. Luce's own remarkable singing talent makes her important to the tribe—she may even have a shot at becoming their queen. However, her struggle to retain her humanity puts her at odds with her new friends. Will Luce be pressured into committing mass murder?

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When I first saw this book in the catalogue of netGalley I knew I had to read it so I put a request for this book and a couple of others. The first letter that got back to me was a rejection and told me that it was because I keep putting off writing my bio. I still have not done that. I began to become afraid that I would not be able to read this one because of my absentee bio page and so was beyond ecstatic that I was given the go ahead to read it. The only problem was that I had just got back to school and I was now swamped with homework. I did the responsible thing and put my homework first. And when I finally had enough I whipped out my nook transferred the book there and spent the rest of the night and several hours the next day devouring Lost Voices by Sarah Porter.

 

Lost Voices is the first book of a series and it should be. If it had been a stand alone I would have been forced to say some bad things about it but as it is a trilogy I have hope for the next two books. Or if she follows in the footsteps of so many authors before her there might be more even though it was only meant to be a trilogy. You know what I mean: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Those are a good one time read.

 

But Lost Voices is hard to put down. I picked it up to read an hour or so before going to bed and yet I was unable to stop until there was no physical way for me to continue. I loved the mythology of mermaids and I liked how Luce tries to keep her humanity. I didn't really understand why she was shunned when she was human though. I felt that Luce while Luce grew she did not really become all that different from the beginning but there is still hope in the second and third book of the series. This book showed a lot of potential.

 

I liked Luce the most. While she was the main character she also was the only one to really retain any of her humanity. All of the other girls were a little evil. In fact I think that a couple of the characters in this book could have been left out because they added nothing to the story. However since they did not take anything away from the story either they did not really bug me too much. Finally I am not really all that sure who will ultimately be the ultimate antagonist for this series. Luce tries to defy the desire to kill humans that every mermaid has. In the spirit of speculation I think that the next book might touch a bit more on mermen. I think and I hope. But for this book you mostly only just dipped your toes into the world and I look forward to being able to see more about it.

 

There is a mermaid queen named Catarina and I get the feeling that we were supposed to like her yet I could not really get onto that boat. Catarina was pretty psycho and I really wanted Luce to find someone else to become friends with and at one point I thought that she would but in the end the chance turned into nothing. Luce is just a little to desperate for somebody.

 

There were a few things that I did not really like about this book. I felt that there were some points that were much too vague. And I am a little confused on what to call the ending. It is not really a cliffhanger but more like the author put the first page or two of the second book onto the end of the first. Because all of the action is finished by the end of the book but then it gives you just a hint of a problem that will be in the second book. Does that even make sense? Anyway it was an evil teaser to the second book because of the fact that I now really want to read the second of the series and the first book has not even come out yet.