Everyone knows someone who or, God forbid, was themselves, in an abusive relationship. Whether it's sexual, physical or emotional abuse, it's still abuse and too many people deal with it everyday instead of escaping.
In Nicole Belanger's debut novel Lost Voice, written when she was 15 and published when she was just 17, she deals with what goes on behind the scenes of an abusive household.
19-year-old Emily Sharpe hasn't had a great life. Her father left her family when she was a kid, taking her brothers with her. Her mother died when she was 15 and her adoptive father raped her.
She thought she won the lottery when she met and moved in with the handsome Jake... but really she won a trip to Hell.
She is beaten, cut and emotionally decimated on a daily basis. No one, not even her best friend, knows what's happening. As the abuse escalates, Emily knows she must tell someone, but every time she does, her voice becomes lost.
Ms. Belanger had a great idea and ran with it, but sometimes it seemed like she ran a bit too fast. Lost Voice is a great read into the mind of an abused young woman who can't get out of her situation.
Most of the story is her mind conversing with the reader. You really well feel as if you're inside Emily's head, feeling her fear and listening to her try and get her life together.
The story has a fast ending that will keep you reading, but the last two chapters went by a bit too fast for my taste. I would've liked to have had some more detail into the "after" part.
But I can't really fault this book. A teen wrote about a problem that so many teens and adults deal with and wrote about it so realistically.
Readers will feel for Emily--either sympathy or empathy--and her hurt psyche will make you want to alternately hug her and slap her to wake her up.
Good read; could've used a little more flair and detail at the very end.
4/5--eye-opening.
Purchase Lost Voice via:
Amazon (PRINT)
Amazon (KINDLE)
Amazon (Australia)
Barnes and Noble
Goodreads
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