Lost Voices - Book 01 - Lost Voices

Lost Voices by Sarah Porter

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I took a while in writing this review, and frankly I am fairly surprised that I did work up the courage to write it. I do not like negative reviews a book, but I feel it necessary to give an honest opinion so that other readers can have regard of your opinion and give their views on it.

When I saw the cover of this book, I was excited to read it. As a little girl I was fixated on mermaids and I haven't read any mermaid books before. Reading the blurp on Goodreads the story also seemed interesting with a new take on how mermaids become mermaids, and this is one aspect of the book I kind of liked. But that is about where my praise ends.

The writing was confusing and waffled around a lot. The transitions between the past and the present were not smooth and instead of contributing to the story really dectracted from my enjoyment (if any) of the book. The characters were not interesting and Luce was especially irritating. Reading about her made me quite angry at times. She was uncertain, whiny, weak, secluded herself often and did not engage with other characters at all. Whilst I accept that this was due to the story line, she was not interesting enough to have to read about her on her own 80% of the time.

There was nothing exciting in the plot safe for the mermaids singing to ships to crash them and even this got really tired after a while. The ending was particularly shocking and whilst I enjoy a good cliff hanger this was NOT a cliffhanger. In fact I think, in keeping with the rest of the story, the ending just hanged! I really did not appreciate the author ending the story in such an abrupt fashion and instead of making me excited for the next book, it really just irritated me. I felt depressed for at least two days after reading this book and that is truly not the emotion that I want to feeling after finishing a story. Bereft yes, but not depressed!

Although it saddens me to say so, I do not intend to follow this series in future. I truly hope some of you find some enjoyment in this book and take the time to argue my review with me. I would love to be convinced that there are some redeeming factors to it.  I must also add that I appreciate that this book is meant for a much younger audience and therefore my review may be seen as not exactly fair. It certainly did not have the depth that I enjoy in books that I give more stars.

I would however still like to thank Harcourt through Netgalley for providing the book for review.

View all my reviews