Lucas Paperback – 6 Mar. 2006

This book was stunning. Beautiful. Thought-ProvokingI loved it in so many ways, Kevin Brooks is an amazing writer and this book is wonderul. It is very insightful and really makes you think about things you will not have thught about before, and it makes you reveiw everything. I loved it and i am writing this reveiw about 50 seconds after i read the book.The writing is powerful and the book is a joy and a sorrow. I absolutely adored it. It was very insightful and Kevin doesn't describe every detail of the character, so it means you are able to make up some of them in your head, which makes it very interesting as each person will interpret it all differently.I strongly recommend this book! especially if you are over the age of 14

Lucas is an extremely good book and I always looked forward to reading it.Lucas is about a girl called Cait who lives with her Dad. When her brother returns from university they see Lucas for the first time. The book follows Cait and her encounters with Lucas. Lucas then starts to get into trouble for things which are not his fault and eventually the whole island turns against him. It is only Cait and her family that are willing to protect Lucas.I felt I could really connect with the characters and I understood their personalities and how they thought about things. My favourite character was Cait because she looked at Lucas from a different perspective which I found interesting. This book taught be to think before you do something because you could judge or harm someone without knowing all the pieces of the puzzle. I found it very interesting how the plot developed and how events could change how you thought about the characters. The book was exciting and I would really recommend it to people of any age.

Read this after The Bunker Diary. Have no idea why this book has better reviews than BD which won a Carnegie Award. That was a lot more gripping. Lucas is long-winded and a bit boring to be honest. If you haven't done so, read The Bunker Diary.

I Picked up this book, not realising it was aimed at teenagers, the reviews were glowing, and righlty so. I could not put this book down, I gobbled it up, there is not a single dull part to this story, but then I reached the end......Possibly I should read the end again, to make clear what actually happened. I will not ruin the story for others but I feel as though the writer didn't really know how to close off the story, so he chose to obvious rute, I think that Lucas being such a fabulous character could have amounted to more.

Was in perfect condition when I bought it. It's a great book, so glad my friend recommended it. The plot is great - felt like crying afterwards. Great book.

‘Lucas’ is told from the viewpoint of sixteen-year-old Caitlin, as she recalls the traumatic events of the previous summer when the title character comes to the small and sparsely populated island she lives on with her father and brother. I first read this way back in 2005 and gave it a 9/10 (5/5 rating) at the time, but on re-reading it (or at least attempting to) I’m struggling to understand exactly why I gave it such a high score…At just over 300 pages long, not much really happens for a good two-thirds of the book. For the first 100+ pages we get a lot of descriptive narrative from Cait, mainly focusing on her surroundings and the scenery of the island, how people look and/or behave and the minutiae of hers (or someone else’s) everyday activities. Ninety-eight percent of it feels surplus to requirements where plot development is concerned, whilst the remaining 2% is blatant foreshadowing for what comes later, once she gets involved with Lucas.Some of this may have been easier to overlook if Cait – as narrator – wasn’t so… well, boring. She waffles on and on about nothing in particular, spends the majority of her time wandering along the beach with her dog whilst giving us a blow by blow account of what she can see (usually lengthy descriptions of what the beach, sky or sea look like) or doing her best to avoid seeing people (usually someone she’s actually made plans to meet up with). Perhaps this is all designed to show that she, like Lucas, is ‘different’ and ‘special’ and ‘not like everyone else’, but it just doesn’t work. All it does is paint her as a whiney, self-obsessed girl, with the attention span of a gnat who looks down her nose at everyone, including her own family.Once Lucas shows up, it’s much of the same. He’s meant to be this enigmatic, good-looking, charming character, shrouded in mystery and allure, but honestly… I just found him a bit creepy. He comes out with some really random things that I doubt any adult would say, let alone a fifteen-year-old boy, and yet Cait seems hopelessly smitten with him almost from the minute she lays eyes on him. In stark contrast, the other island residents are seemingly so repulsed by his presence, they go to greater and greater lengths to belittle him in order to get him to leave.Ultimately ‘Lucas’ is about tolerance and/or the lack of it, especially when it comes to the unknown. It’s clear the vast majority of the island residents are xenophobic to a greater or lesser degree and thus fear anyone – and anything – that doesn’t fit neatly into their idea of what is acceptable. However, because we only experience proceedings from Cait’s point of view, it’s difficult to judge how much is fact and how much is misinterpreted by Cait because her intense feelings for Lucas are clouding her recollection of things. That’s not to excuse the way the islanders behave – especially in the last few chapters which are particularly harrowing (if a little far-fetched) – but I feel it would have made for a better story if we’d seen things from other people’s points of view occasionally, instead of just Cait’s.I’ve read a few of Brooks’ other books in the intervening years since first reading ‘Lucas’ and it’s safe to say his style of writing and chosen subject matters can be polarising. He certainly tackles some difficult and contemporary topics including child neglect, bullying and runaway children, but not always with the greatest of ease. Unfortunately, after this second read of ‘Lucas’ I have to say it goes down as one of the ones in which Brooks hasn’t quite captured the mood for me. There’s a few too many clichés, overly-used motifs and unoriginal character flaws to make ‘Lucas’ a truly captivating novel.Had I read this as a teenager, I think I would have found myself getting impatient with Cait as the narrator and angry at the single-minded islanders, to the point where I would (most likely) have given up reading. That being said, my Grandma always used to say I had ‘too much common sense’ for one so young, so perhaps it was inevitable that everyone in ‘Lucas’ would irritate me now and when I was younger.

I first read this book when I was still in school and that was over 10 years ago. Since that day the same copy of this book has sat on my shelf, used and loved. I loved the story of Lucas and Caitlin, it isn't a romance novel that is the truth but it's romantic in a sense. You see these two characters develop and grow and you grow with them and I am not a spoiler so I won't ruin the ending. But prepare the tissues because this is a heartbreaker. It is a must read for anyone of any age.