Book Review : Lucy (Daughters of the Sea, #3) by Kathryn Lasky

Lucy (Daughters of the Sea, #3) by Kathryn Lasky

 Hardcover, 320 pages

Published March 1st 2012 by Scholastic Inc. 

Available on Amazon / Barnes and Noble / The Book Depository

Synopsis

A choice between love and survival . . .Lucy's family is excited to spend the summer in Bar Harbor, Maine. Her minister father is pleased to preside over such a prestigious congregation, and his social-climbing wife is ecstatic at the chance to find a rich husband for her daughter.Yet Lucy wants nothing to do with the Bar Harbor social scene; she's simply excited to spend the summer by the sea, watching the waves from her favorite spot on the cliff. Despite having never gone swimming, Lucy feels an intense connection to the ocean, and meets a handsome ship-builder who shows Lucy a world she's never known, yet somehow always longed for.However, her mother will stop at nothing to keep Lucy and the ship builder apart, even if it means throwing Lucy into the arms of a wealthy man with a dangerous secret. Can Lucy break free and embrace her destiny as a daughter of the sea? Or is she doomed to waste away in a gilded cage, slowly dying of a broken heart?

 Review

Lucy is a continuation of the Daughters of The Sea series, but as with the second book, it starts with Lucy's story before Hannah and May eventually get pulled within as well. Lucy is a girl with artistic talents and have a great fascination with the sea - much like her two mer-sisters. Her father is a  minister, and her mother is a vain, snobbish woman whose ultimate goal is to find Lucy the perfect husband. However, Lucy falls for someone else instead - someone who has no social standing, yet shares her love for the sea.

I have mixed feelings for this book. I started reading this with much anticipation, as I hoped things will finally be resolved, whether or not the sisters decide to live on land or in the sea. It started out fine - with Kathryn Lasky's trademark smooth, dreamy writing style, and I was excited to fine out more about Lucy.

However, towards the end of the story, Lasky inserted a plot twist which I totally didn't see coming, but it was rather silly. I mean, the motives were too shallow, and I couldn't see the point behind all the drama and fuss. And the story of the three sisters were never given a decent ending. It just ended. Randomly. I'm wondering if this is one of the author's habits? Leaving readers hanging on a cliffhanger at the end of a book (first / second in a trilogy) is a good thing, but ending your last book just like that? Without any conclusion or further explanation? That's just plain weird.

  

Overall, Lucy is a fairly decent book, though I personally thought that it should have been better. I wished to see the respective conclusions for the sisters' star-crossed romance. Will they forsake their love to embrace their true self or sacrifice their special bond with the sea to unite with their loved ones? And how will Lucy's story end? Curiouser and curiouser!

Rating:

Note of Thanks

A huge THANK YOU to Stephanie from Scholastic Malaysia, Singapore & Indonesia for providing this review copy!

About The Author
 

Kathryn Lasky is the American author of many critically acclaimed books, including several Dear America books, several Royal Diaries books, 1984 Newbery Honor winning Sugaring Time, The Night Journey, and the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her latest book, Guardians of Ga'Hoole Book 15: The War of the Ember, was released on November 1, 2008. Guardians of Gahoole: A guide to the Great Tree was released on September 1st, almost a month before projected selling time. She was born June 24, 1944, and grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is married to Christopher Knight, with whom she lives in Boston, Massachusetts.