Luca, Son of the Morning By Tom Anderson
London on the 15th May 1980 He lived with his parents in London until he saw the error of his ways only a couple of years later whereupon his family moved back to his father s homeland of South Wales It was inevitable that he would be drawn to the sea since his grandfather had been a top lifesaver and his father a successful competitive surfer back in the day Tom began surfing at the age of 11 and moved to the seaside town of Porthcawl at the age of 13 He saved up for his first custom surfboard at the age of 14 after doing a milk round for 27 weeks 270 pounds working from midnight until five AM every Friday night.
London on the 15th May 1980 He lived with his parents in London until he saw the error of his ways only a couple of years later whereupon his family moved back to his father s homeland of South Wales It was inevitable that he would be drawn to the sea since his grandfather had been a top lifesaver and his father a successful competitive surfer back in the day Tom began surfing at the age of 11 and moved to the seaside town of Porthcawl at the age of 13 He saved up for his first custom surfboard at the age of 14 after doing a milk round for 27 weeks 270 pounds working from midnight until five AM every Friday night.
Tom was born in Watford under the watchful eye of long time Porthcawl Point local Gez McKay who has since joined the Tom was born in Watford under the watchful eye of long time Porthcawl Point local Gez McKay who has since joined the police cause it gives you even water time than a milk round By the age of 16 Tom had gained a place on the Welsh Junior Surfing team and British Junior Development Squad After finishing school Tom began to travel abroad as much as possible in search of better waves During a degree in English at the University of Glamorgan the Student Loans Company funded a large proportion of the travel which went on to form the basis of the Magic Carpet storyline He still had to get the odd job though and has done just about everything including such trades as golf caddy caravan cleaner bailiff suit salesman dishwasher ice cream bike operative barman line feeder at a Sony factory private investigator canine dental machine repairman and obviously surf shop assistant His interests away from surfing include making so called terminally ill cars last an extra 23000 miles and still counting thank you Nissan watching the Welsh Football Team and Arsenal be it at a dodgy foreign bar in the stands of the Millennium Stadium or at Highbury the Emirates Stadium longboard skateboarding poker basketball reading and writing and scheming for other ways to fund surf travel site_link I thoroughly enjoyed Luca Son of the Morning it is a beautifully written haunting creatively crafted book that pulls you in from the start and doesn t let you go until the very last page I loved the way that it was a etheral fantasy novel set in a smallordinary town in Wales and laced with important issues such as mental health bullying and friendship Anderson packed warmth colour and passionate storytelling into this book which captivated me and allowed me to explore the very depths and dangers of imagination I found Luca to be an incredibly convincing and unique protagonist and I loved that the story was told from his perspective in first person I was sucked into his world and felt all of his emotions and frustrations keenly A lot of novels particularly YA told in the first person can feel somewhat moany and overly indulgent in the feelings of the protagonist but Anderson perfectly balanced Luca s thoughts with the action of the plot I felt like I understood Luca really well as a character and this kept me engaged throughout as I cared immensely about how things worked out for him The setting was beautifully described by Anderson and I could imagine each scene so vividly in my head I particularly enjoyed the scenes on the beach where I could virtually taste the salt whipping around in the air The language was intricately detailed and delightfully vivid which gave meaning to the premise of the book how imagination can allow us to feel swept out of our world and into another. I thought that Gaby was really well written in a complex and intriguing way Anderson held back the mystery and allowed us to feel like Luca out of our depth berwildered and wholly enraptured in Gaby I loved their friendship though at times I was frustrated by the way Gaby treated it and I was pleased it wasn t an insta friendship like you see in so many YA novels Gaby was intelligent and interesting and a refreshing female character who also happened to be the love interest of the novel Alix approves. Luca s relationship with his parents was again extremely complex and wasn t as simple as the typical YA trope of ugh I m a moody teenager and my parents don t understand me I enjoyed reading about the chapters with Luca and his parents and the dialogue exchange was brilliant I felt like Anderson captured perfectly and realistically a complicated parental child relationship of equal resentment and love Luca Son of the Morning was definitely a novel I enjoyed the further I got into it The reason why this review isn t 5 s is simply because I felt the beginning was too rushed and I was too quickly thrown into the deep end As a reader I wasn t given time to explore the complexities of Gaby and Luca s relationship I just had to accept it and read on I felt like if I had of an in depth introduction to Luca s world then I would have enjoyed the beginning the lot I adored the end section of the book and the way in which the mystery was unravelled was so brilliantly done I really felt for Luca and the way that certain passages were written were so heartbreaking yet beautiful The end section of the book was definitely when the themes of mental health so brightly shone through and I thought it was brilliantly and sensitively done Luca Son of the Morning is undoubtedly a novel with so many layers that masks suprises only to be revealed when you can t see the story getting any mystical. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Luca Son of the Morning and if you haven t checked out Tom Anderson yet I would thoroughly recommend that you do 300 So I borrowed this book from my local library this afternoon 11th January and saw that there weren t many reviews for the novel So me being curious after reading the blurb I decided to give Luca a try The setting is a town in South Wales with Luca a year eleven student at high school and close to sitting his GCSEs He has issues controlling his temper and receives help for it which he isn t sure he wants The closet friend to him at school is a girl called Gaby who he harbours a little crush on but won t say so to her face One night he ventures out to the local beach in his town and witnesses a ghostly group of nineteen figures walking along the shore and into the crashing waves of the sea At first he s too scared to join in but when he does Luca ends up in various locations across the world and experiencing strange events that are new to him. I found the pacing to be a little too slow for my liking I did enjoy the concept behind the strange figures at the dead of night which is the main reason the plotline appealed to me Regarding connection with characters I found that me personally as the reader couldn t really connect with Luca or Gaby Some scenes of bullying are included but the GCSE BTEC side was realistic In the UK our high school system goes from age 11 to age 16 and the qualifications students over 14 take are just like the ones Luca and his fellow classmates are part of Overall this wasn t quite what I was expecting and feeling a little disappointed 300
| Luca, Son of the Morning By Tom Anderson |
| 1783757949 |
| 9781783757947 |
| English |
| 300 |
| Paperback |