Review: Lost Voices

Lost Voices by Sarah Porter
Publication Date: July 4, 2011
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover: 291 pages

Synopsis from Goodreads:
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 a 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 possesses an extraordinary singing talent, which 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.

Mini-summary:  Lost Voices is a debut YA fantasy novel about mermaids, which although the author posed an interesting spin on mermaids/sirens, ultimately I wasn't as invested in the characters/story as I'd hoped.

Why I read this book:  I'm a sucker for mermaid stories.  The Little Mermaid is still one of my all-time favorite Disney movies.

Review
Isolation and abandonment is all fourteen-year-old Luce has ever known.  After being carted around the country with her father – a man with a talent for collecting felonies – Luce ends up in a small town in Alaska under the lack of care of her uncle.  Without friends or family to speak of, Luce’s main priority is being invisible to everyone around her – but mostly just to her alcoholic uncle whose drunken rants frequently turn violent.

Even the fishing village Luce lives in is a desolate and isolated place, surrounded by gray, icy water and drab houses battered by winter storms.  Still dealing with the loss of her father (whose death is still clouded in mystery), Luce endures a tragic encounter with her uncle.  These events act as the catalyst spurring Luce’s transformation into a mermaid.

Luce, a girl who didn’t belong anywhere to or anyone, soon discovers a tribe of mermaids ruled by their queen, Catalina.  Luce’s immediate sense of belonging and friendship initially overshadow the cruelty associated with being a mermaid – the compulsion to drown nearby humans with their enchanted voices.  Tough choices will be made and lines crossed as Luce faces the prospect losing her newly-acquired family and becoming an accomplice to mass murder.

Lost Voices, is a YA fantasy novel from debut author Sarah Porter.  I desperately wanted to love this novel; several aspects were, in fact, very appealing.  The author’s blending of the mermaid and siren folklore and means by which girls undergo the transformation peaked my interest – especially one of the transformation stories for a group of characters introduced after Luce becomes a mermaid.  The world-building and interaction between the mermaids and their environment were other aspects which kept me reading.

These fell short; however, because after the novel went underwater with Luce, I wasn’t as invested with the supporting characters (and ultimately Luce).  The characters felt flat and some of the conversation forced.  Relating to the emotions driving decisions the characters made became increasingly difficult.  Lack of investment with the characters and a slow moving plot made this book difficult to finish.  I kept waiting for something (anything) to happen to move the story forward, and when it finally did, the event had been danced around for so long, the crisis point lacked a sense of urgency and adrenaline. 

Another issue I have with Lost Voices is the writing felt forced in places to sound, for lack of a better word, writerly.  Too much poetic description and metaphors often detract (for me) from what is actually taking place in a novel, so much so, that I notice the writing itself and end up distracted from the story.  Lengthy passages depicting Luce’s voice and her song definitely fall into this category.

In short, the unique concept just wasn’t enough to overcome the slow-moving plot and flat characters to make it a novel I would readily recommend.  As of this review, I probably won’t be reading the sequel.

Rating: 1.5