emilybookedup's Reviews > The Lost Story

i thought this one was just okay. mainly because for me, the first and second half felt like two totally different books?!

this author also wrote THE WISHING GAME which was everrryyywhere last year. i haven’t seen too many people review this yet (just released + is a BOTM pick) and i myself went in pretty blind… but overall, i think readers will prefer her debut.

whats sad is this had so much potential and i was loving the first half. it totally sucked me in—two boys disappear for 6 months and are magically found but one can’t remember anything and one won’t talk about it. now one of them makes a living helping find people who are missing. it was giving MAJORRRRR Adrienne Young and THE SPELLS OF FORGETTING or THE UNMAKING OF JUNE FARROW vibes (loved both of those sooo much) and i so wanted it to continue but it just didn’t 😫😫😫 the backhalf felt so awkward and almost extremely YA? the romance felt random to me too honestly.

i did an audio/physical combo of this one and enjoyed both. but tbh likely i would have DNF in the backhalf if i didn’t do majority on audio tho 👀

i loooove magical realism but again, something about the backhalf just didn’t work for me. maybe it was more “telling” then “showing”? it was hard to picture and feel the forest and magic.

ugh!! can’t win them all. thanks to PRH audio for the gifted early audiobook.

if you read this, LMK what you think!