Book Shelf: Lost Voices (Lost Voices #1) by Sarah Porter

What happens to the girls nobody sees—the ones who are ignored, mistreated, hidden away? The girls nobody hears when they cry for help? Fourteen-year-old Luce is one of those lost girls. After her father vanishes in a storm at sea, she is stuck in a grim, gray Alaskan fishing village with her alcoholic uncle. When her uncle crosses an unspeakable line, Luce reaches the depths of despair. Abandoned on the cliffs near her home, she expects to die when she tumbles to the icy, churning waves below. Instead, she 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. The mermaids are beautiful, free, and ageless, and Luce is thrilled with her new life until she discovers the catch: they feel an uncontrollable desire to drown seafarers, using their enchanted voices to lure ships into the rocks. Luce’s own talent at singing captures the attention of the tribe’s queen, the fierce and elegant Catarina, and Luce soon finds herself pressured to join in committing mass murder. Luce’s struggle to retain her inner humanity puts her at odds with her friends; even worse, Catarina seems to regard Luce as a potential rival. But the appearance of a devious new mermaid brings a real threat to Catarina’s leadership and endangers the very existence of the tribe. Can Luce find the courage to challenge the newcomer, even at the risk of becoming rejected and alone once again? 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.

Blurb taken from Goodreads.....

Review:

I’m honestly unsure how to write my review of this book. First, this is the first mermaid tale I’ve ever read and going into it I was very excited, however this story is actually a real disappointment in my eyes. The writing itself is fabulous. The author weave every word together beautifully and she has a unique take on how mermaids were created, yet I feel she didn't go into enough detail to explain how this occurrence actually happened. What someone was mistreated and then poof....they became a mermaid? Sorry not enough for me—I would have liked a deeper explanation. I did like the plot line of this story for the most part and this is the main reason I continued reading the book.

The mermaids in this book were very much siren-like—singing to ships and hedging sailors and people in general to their deaths. Young, old, innocent, guilty-- they were all the same in the tribe’s eyes and no one was spared. It was very hard for me to push aside what they did throughout the book because as far as I was concerned, it was murder. The things that were done to each one of these mermaids during their human lives were horrendous, but that was in no way an excuse for them to do what they did. Just because one person is cruel and horrible, doesn’t mean they all are.

I’m sorry, but Luce was just as horrible main character. Yes, she was young and she’d been treated horribly but she was weak and winey and pathetic. I understand that as a reader we’re supposed to emphasise with how she’s written, but it was just near impossible for me. She was willing to brush aside too much of her humanity to fit in with this new crowd. Luce was willing to sit back and watch something that she knew and felt was wrong simply because she didn’t want to be ostracised. It was ridiculous how all of the mermaids acted really, they were vain and shallow and idiotic. They looked at things in twisted ways and I disliked Luce more and more for her need to fit in and be one of them. even when she did something right and stood up for each and everyone one of them, they still treated her cruelly and the fact that she let that happen time and time again made it impossible for me to respect her.

The ending of this book was very abrupt and I actually kept trying to scroll down, trying to see if there was more to this story, but alas there isn’t. I do wonder what the author has in store for a sequel, but considering how little I liked this I doubt I’ll read it....

Rating: *** stars

Recommend: Not really

Did I Buy, Borrow or is it an ARC: ARC

Recommend Buy or Borrow: Borrow

Ebook or Actual Book: Ebook

Cover: I really like it. It's simply, but nice

Read sequel/continue with series: Doubt it