Lost Voices by Sarah Porter

Author:Sarah Porter


Series: Lost Voices #1


Name of Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's


Release Date: July 4, 2011


Age group: 12-15


Number of Pages: 302


 Summary

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?

The first book in a trilogy, Lost Voices is a captivating and wildly original tale about finding a voice, the healing power of friendship, and the strength it takes to forgive.    

Review

Thank you, Netgalley for sending me this book.

             Luce is a teenage girl who has been wronged in so many ways-especially by her uncle. Her mother left when she was younger, and her father died of a shipwreck onThe High and Mighty. But the night the final wrong comes down, Luce is left abandoned on a cliff where she had found a girl's cold dead body. She sits there, reminiscing her past of not fitting in and realizing that if she goes back to her Uncle, she'll live in fear every night of the same horrible thing happening to her again. Through her tears and turmoil, she comes to a final decision-not to go back. 

            But Luce is suddenly falling, and she eventually realizes that she's falling off the cliff. She thinks of how much alike the feeling of falling off is like experiencing the arms of death enclosing around her. She suddenly hears the lulling sound of music-beautiful, stunning, music. Moments later, Luce realizes the truth. Along with many other girls who have changed into mermaids because of what human beings did to them, she becomes close to the tribe's queen, Catarina. The tribe of mermaids sing with their beautiful voices and bring ships down as vengeance to their past. But Luce starts to think about how her father died on a shipwreck-possibly one caused by the mermaids?

            Living in the tribe isn't perfect-there's still rules. The timahk forbids that you have any human contact at all, hurt any other mermaid (including larvae), banish any mermaid unless they've broken the timahk first, and if you saw another mermaid in danger, you had to help her unless it was a situation where if you helped, you could be killed, too. Luce is fine with those rules until she finds out Catarina's stealthy secret-one that could get her kicked out of the tribe-permanently. 

            Newcomers eventually come to the tribe named Dana, Jenna, Rachel, Violet, Becka and Hilory are orphans who have been nearly killed by their orphanage keeper. Both Catarina and Luce, who are both amazing singers, do the hard task of changing a girl named Anais, who starts to bring out the worst in everyone. But when she and Samantha, a bitter mermaid who seems exactly like Anais's follower find out what Catarina's secret is-what will they do to her-and Luce?

            Intriguing and spellbinding, this book is for sure a sweet read. It's wonderfully descriptive and detailed, which lets you picture everything that's happening in the story. Every twist and turn of the story is intensive and secretive, which gives you the running thrill of suspense. If you read this book, you definitely won't regret it.  

Rating
A+ (amazing!)