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Title: Listening for Lucca
Author: Suzanne LaFleur
Published By: Wendy Lamb Books (2013)
Synopsis:
Siena is not your everyday, normal 13-year-old. Ever since her two-year-old brother Lucca stopped talking for reasons no doctor can explain, she’s started a collection of old, abandoned things. Siena also has visions of the past and has been dreaming of a house by the sea—not daydreaming, but literal, when-she’s-asleep dreaming. When her family decides to move, they find an old house that strikingly resembles the one from Siena’s dream. When they get there, Siena discovers a pen marked with the initials SEA—and when she uses it to write in an old journal, the pen writes its own story, about a girl named Sarah who lived in the same house during World War II! As time goes on and Siena starts finding items from Sarah’s story, she discovers that, like Lucca, Sarah stopped talking. Did she ever talk again? Could she be the key to unlocking Lucca’s voice?
Review:
I thought it was a fantastic story and fantastic writing! It had an element of fantasy to it, yet was realistic enough to seem like real life. Siena’s story seems like it could be easily real.
I will note that it is a bit higher reading level than Love, Aubrey and Eight Keys (Suzanne LaFleur’s other books), and it has a couple of more mature concepts (the main character is closer to a teenager, after all).
The only thing at first I was unsure about was that there is some “ghost” sections in the story, in terms of, Siena, using her visions-of-the-past power, goes back in time, into Sarah’s body, to the house when it was Sarah’s, and talks to Sarah’s big brother Joshua. As I said, at first I was unsure about it—but it all merged together in the end and made the story even better, so no complaints!
Negative Content/Notes:
No negative content. Like I said, there is a ghost/spooky element (Siena goes back in time in someone else’s body) but it is not glorified in the wrong light. One or two “Oh God” or “Oh my God” which kinda bugged me but were just one or two times, so it was easy enough to skim over.
Overall:
When I was younger, I loved this book so, so, so much (in fact, I loved all of LaFleur’s books–and I still do). Coming back to this review years later has reminded me of how much I truly enjoyed the book. I haven’t read it a long time, but at the targeted age range it filled me with excitement and thrill and that is what I remember when I think of this book; and so for that reason I highly recommend this book!
Rating: 5.0
Recommended to: Anyone and everyone!