This was a YA book, so it was quite easy to read. Good historical touches, very Roman in the descriptions of the times and customs...but an awful ending. She should have stopped sooner or kept going a bit more; as where the characters ended up was awkward and left me feeling disappointed. ( )

Like The Monster of Florence, this one had been sitting on my shelf for years. The title is overdramatic--Areg and I saw a documentary by the British Museum in which two experts (one of them Mary Beard) that said an estimated 90% of the populations of Pompeii and Herculaneum had escaped--but I'm not going to ping Lasky for that given that I didn't know better, myself.

12-year-old Julia is the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder, but since one of her arms is small and withered her options in life will be limited. Sura is Julia's personal salve, a 16-year-old who was captured in Thrace when she was 6, whose options in life are, of course, basically nonexistent. Julia's two older sisters are getting married within a month of each other and she's sick to death of wedding prep. Meanwhile, her parents are trying to decide the best future for their youngest daughter, whose arm will prevent her from marrying, and with Sura once they've figured out what to do with Julia. Sura's not happy with what she knows of their plans but unfortunately her brother, a successful gladiator, is unlikely to earn enough money to buy her freedom before she's sold off. And in the background there are signs that something much bigger is wrong: tremors in the earth, cracks in buildings and aqueducts, sulfurous smells in the water, changing tides, and a whole lot of augurs, seers, and sibyls confused about the signs they're getting.

I have very strong mixed feelings: on the one hand, Lasky did a good job of making early AD Rome come to life. The historical detail was rich, with a mostly decent balance of explanation (though there were a few infodumps) and plot. And the plot itself surprised me, for a book with a note that it's for ages 11 and up, with its many side plots and supporting characters' stories that still cohered in only 175 pages. Only two major supporting characters in a big family felt one-dimensional. It's easy to remember why I enjoyed Lasky's historical fiction when I was in middle school.

On the other hand, I was kind of shocked at how mature some of the themes were in a book billed for ages 11 and up, and I say that as someone who generally thinks that kids can handle more than we give them credit for: there were lecherous men, coerced kisses and threats of rape, implied slaves-for-sex, a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old "in love" and planning to elope, married and pregnant teenagers, extramarital affairs, freakin' penis jokes--it's frankly amusing that Pompeii's famous brothels don't get a mention. All of it is perfectly expected for the time period, but it seems like 13 should be the recommended minimum age here.

The writing was also a bit clunky. There were unannounced perspective switches between Julia and Sura in a few places, a couple info dump-y paragraphs, and Sura had much less space in the text than Julia did even though I wanted more about her life. At one point, the actual full sentence "He was a Jew" was followed mere sentences later by a much smoother introduction of this fact when a character playful asks (paraphrased), "How can a Jewish restauranteur serve such delicious shellfish?" And the Epilogue was written in a style that suggested these characters were based on real people whose bodies/casts had been found, which was a major tonal shift from the rest of the book, seriously muddied the waters about what Lasky based on reality and what she invented, and (in more of a personal preference) gave a much too neat-and-tidy ending in contrast to the delightfully messy human lives that came before.

Those messy lives, which made up the bulk of the book, were what I enjoyed the most: I loved having a physically imperfect protagonist whose character isn't totally defined by their difference; seeing the vast contrast between Julia and Sura's lives and experiences; watching loving parents grapple with politics, finances, and wanting the best possible future for a daughter with limited options; watching other adults have complicated emotional and social lives; and at the same time seeing siblings--children--with smaller, pettier concerns and resentments and oversimplified views of the world. It's complicated in a realistic way that you don't often see in stories for this audience. Lasky was blunt and honest about the prevalence and likely emotional complications of Roman slavery, and even if Julia and Sura's relationship was more modern than it would have been, the social divide wasn't downplayed: when Julia suggests running away with Sura, even her progressive best friend points out that it would be considered theft.

Overall, I enjoyed this middle school book a great deal more than I expected, but that unexpected enjoyment made the literary lapses and odd moments of modern thought (fear of snakes, which were sacred; Julia declaring that she and Sura are both slaves; Julia's surprise and unforgiving sense of betrayal that her parents would send her to a temple (especially one with a medical bent that would actually engage her intellect) and sell Sura; Julia and Sura declaring that they are sisters at heart) all the more of a let down.

Still, on balance my final impression of The Last Girls of Pompeii is more favorable than not; I know I would have loved this book when I was its target audience. ( )

The book does a beautiful job of describing the historical setting of the novel. The characters are likable, particularly Sura with her kindness and loyalty. The book is typical of young adult fiction with the main character, Julia being mostly focused on her own happiness. However, the ending tends to be a little abrupt and unrealistic with the girls escaping the explosion to live in a different village leaving behind their friends and family who perished. ( )

Picked it up after a complaint. Interesting story, but more mature content. Narrator is 12, but the story is more of a grade 7 and up. ( )

Julia is the twelve-year-old youngest daughter of a magistrate, Cornelius Petreius and his wife, Herminia Petreia. Julia was born with a withered left arm. It's not much bigger than a baby's arm and it can't move on its own. Her closest friend is her Thracian slave, Sura. Sura was only four years old when she and her older brother, Bryzos, were kidnapped during a Roman raid. Bryzos is now an up-and-coming gladiator. Can he earn enough prize money to buy her freedom?

Julia's oldest sister, Cornelia, is a pain. She's betrothed to a good-looking young man from a rich family, but Cornelia isn't willing to wait until late September to be married. You see, the middle sister, Flavia, got married last month. Cornelia can't stand the thought that her younger sister was married before she was. August 24th is the day Cornelia wants to get married on, even though that's Mundus Patet, the day the doors to Hades are supposed to open. There's no arguing with Cornelia, so her mother keeps visiting augurs to find out if it would be okay to have the wedding on the 24th.

The title of this book is The Last Girls of Pompeii and it's the year 79 Anno Domini, so if you know about Pompeii's fate, you'll be anticipating the drama of the last few chapters. There will be big problems for Julia and Sura even before that happens, thanks to Cornelius & Herminia's need for some extra money, and a conniving mother who doesn't care for her only son's interest in Julia. How many of the characters will survive the famous disaster? Will any of them survive?

I've been interested in the lost city of Pompeii ever since I first heard about it in a junior high (middle school) art class and saw pictures in an issue of National Geographic. The author wrote about her own interest in the city and her visit there, which I enjoyed reading about as much as the novel itself. If you like to read notes about actual history at the end of historical novels (I do!), there are three short ones. ( )