Lost Voices

May 23, 2011
In debut novelist Porter's bleak take on mermaids, first in a trilogy, the creatures are born out of human abuse and neglect. Luce is an unwanted orphan, living with her alcoholic uncle on the Alaska coast. When he tries to rape her, Luce simply gives up and slides away, falling off a cliff. She awakens singing in the ocean, watching strangers drown as a ship sinks. There are other singers nearby, who bully Luce, answer her questions, and welcome her in a way her peers on land never did. A mermaid's life turns out to be even more brutal than the one Luce left, but now the brutality is directed elsewhereâat humankind. Still, Luce's conscience rebels, and she seeks some way to resolve the beauty of a mermaid's song with the horror of a siren's role. Porter's narrative style suits her oceanic theme; the vivid colors and particularities of life are smoothed away to plain clarity. Luce thinks about her world in ways that read much younger than her 14 years, but the simplicity of the style makes the darkness of the story more tolerable. Ages 12âup.

August 1, 2011

Gr 6-9-Luce, 14, wants to just disappear. After her swindling father's boat vanishes, she is forced to move in with her abusive, alcoholic uncle in an Alaskan fishing town. One day he attacks her atop a tall cliff. In her desperation to flee, she is sent tumbling down into the ocean below. What surely should have meant death is actually a rebirth, as Luce is magically transformed into a mermaid and taken in by several mermaids residing nearby. Luce, who has never had any real friends, befriends them, learning that the tribe is made up of girls just like her; they have all been abused in some way. After adjusting to her new world, Luce is overwhelmed with the love she feels-until she learns that her friends use their powerful voices to lure passing ships into the rocks, killing everyone onboard. She is appalled but if she doesn't subscribe to their practices and their abhorrence of humans, she may be banished, sent out into the dangerous ocean on her own. When a new mermaid joins the group and grossly shifts the tribe's dynamics, though, Luce's character is truly tested. For the first book in a slated trilogy, Porter does a nice job of painting Luce's emotions and the dynamics within the tribe. The description of how the girls transform is hazy at best and must be overlooked to enjoy the story that takes place under the sea. The book should be enjoyed by those who dream of becoming someone (or something) else.-Lauren Newman, Northern Burlington County Regional Middle School, Columbus, NJ

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2011

On her 14th birthday, Luce enters a dark world of mermaids in this foreboding yet ultimately uneventful debut.

After a life of thievery on the road, her single dad tried to give her normalcy by settling down and taking a fishing job in an Alaskan coastal village. Since his boat disappeared a year ago, Luce has been living with her violent, alcoholic uncle. When he tries to rape her, Luce liquefies, reforms as a mermaid and is taken in by a group of cliquish mermaids, who were all mistreated girls as humans. Reminiscent of Kevin Brooks, Porter blends lyrical narration with the ever-present threat of sinister violence. Like The Odyssey's Sirens, these mermaids, led by their queen, Catarina, use their voices to lure ships to destruction and their passengers to death. Equally fascinated and repulsed by the process, Luce, a naturally gifted singer bound by the mermaids' code of honor, tries to think of a way to turn their voices from tools of evil into beauty. Adding to her dilemma are Catarina's insecurities and secret compromises to the mermaid code and the arrival of the once-spoiled and wealthy Anais, who tries to usurp Catarina's power. The real problem is that Luce takes too long to find her own voice and the tension wears thin.

A sudden ending to this slow-paced story will leave readers floundering. (Fantasy. 12 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 15, 2011
Grades 7-10 In this haunting debut, Porter reworks mermaid mythology to tell a story of abuse, revenge, and forgiveness. Fourteen-year-old Luce, living in an Alaskan fishing village with her abusive uncle, falls from a cliff and becomes a mermaid. She soon meets other lost girls; also abused by loved ones before transforming into beautiful creatures, they now have an ability to get what they never had in life: vengeance. Each has an irresistible desire to use her enchanted voice, which projects suffering as a siren call, to lure humans to their deaths. Luce feels the same electrifying impulse, but unlike the others, she fights her death song, remembering the mysterious disappearance of her loving father at sea. Porters writing is expressive and graceful, especially in describing the underwater setting and the emotional nuances of the mermaids songs, but the plot loses momentum, spending too much time on mercurial mean-girl dynamics in a group of, albeit realistically, emotionally damaged girls. The abrupt ending doesnt set up the sequel so much as require it, but this is still a captivatingly different story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2012
After Luce's transformation from human to mermaid, she learns all mermaids were once abused girls who are now seeking revenge for humans' innate cruelty. By singing a beautifully sad death song, Luce and her tribe cause shipwreck after shipwreck, a practice that never feels right to Luce. The gratifying story charts one girl's physical and emotional journey toward finding her own strength and voice.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)