Hidden Voices by Pat Lowery Collins

The renowned Opsedale della Pieta in Venice takes in abandoned baby girls and teaches them to sing or play an instrument. Though the orphanage cares for their every need and much more, the only thing that truly matters to the hearts of the Pieta girls is finding true love. And for Luisa, Annetta, and Rosalba, real love is far from what they expected.

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I was quite shocked frankly. I had such high hopes that this book was going to be good, but it ended up being rather disappointing and a waste of time. After reading a few pages of the book, my first thought was that it was going to be a loooong week because the book moved so slow. I got exactly halfway through when it happened! The disaster event. Rosalba thought she could just pick a "suitor" and things would act out like a play. Instead she got herself raped and ended up giving another "orphan" back to the Opselade. The book also ended a far cry from "happily ever after", which in this setting, such a thing only happened in plays.

The entire book switched off between the three girls, Luisa, Rosabla, and Annetta, (whew all those Italian girl names all end in "a"!!) which made it rather interesting, but since the story kept dragging on, the character changes didn't really make it any better. Hidden Voices could have been a somewhat nicer story, but the rape details were uncalled for. Either the author was just explaining what could happen to you if you made Rosalba's silly decision, or she was simply just writing about the orphan girl's unhappy endings. I'm sorry to sound this way because an author's book(s) are his masterpiece(s)-no matter how the sad the story is-but I just could not recommend this book. Hidden Voices was released May 12th, 2009.

Special thanks to Candlewick Press and Flamingnet for sending me this book.

Pages: 340  Year Published: May 2009   Genre: Historical, 1700s

Age Group: YA, ages 15+    Recommend? No

Content: Sexual references and rape     Use in Classroom? No

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