The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst

Review:

The first time I read this, I’d have rated it four or five stars. I was so emotionally invested. I was fascinated by the world and the semi-unique concept (Gort from Halloweentown, Sakaar from Thor: Ragnarok), I was in love with Peter, I related hard to Lauren, I seethed with frustration alongside the townspeople, I adored Claire and wanted to adopt her, I bawled when Mom died.

This time, I made the mistake of reading analytically—and found myself very disenchanted. Loads of heart and theme, and the worldbuilding is immersive . . . but not solid, and if you start asking questions, it’ll all fall apart. Which means what’s on the page doesn’t make much sense, and what’s left off the page is a lot. And I hate that.

I kinda felt like I’d fallen in love with someone who was all sweetness and charm, then realized after the wedding that they’re an unreliable asshole and I’m no longer a challenge.

First, I have to get my anger over the original ending off my chest. I felt so betrayed and insulted. Sure, it was meant to be a trilogy, but it’s so cruel for an author to leave the reader hanging like that. At the very least, we should have known if Lauren successfully made it back. There are cliffhangers, and then there are unfinished stories, and The Original Lost was the latter.

I spent hours trying to articulate in this review why the world of Lost and its “rules” don’t make any sense and got a raging headache for my effort. Suffice it to say—don’t think about it too hard. Just appreciate the themes and emotional journey and you’ll have a good time. Don’t try to make sense of how time or death works in Lost, or the fact that being lost is a matter of perspective and not a permanent state, or that real life consequences while visiting Lost are vague and inconsistent, or why the void bothers to expel lost things if it truly wants to consume them all—let all that go.

I hoped “expanded” meant that some of the story had been fleshed out, but if anything besides the ending was changed in the new version, the edits were so subtle I didn’t notice them. To me it read the same until the last couple chapters—I only read it a couple weeks ago, so my memory was relatively fresh. It’s super disappointing, because we’re still left with so many questions. Peter: “‘[Y]ou don’t really want to know how the magician does his tricks. It will ruin the show.'” Wrong. I very, very much want to know the hows and whys.

Comments, notes, and nitpicks in no particular order:

• We learn about Room 12, but not 2, 5, 6, or 15. Or why 23 smells like skunk piss, though I think I’m good not knowing more about that.

• We learn only one thing about the Missing Man—he’s Lauren’s father. Which I didn’t see the first time I read the book, too wrapped up emotionally and assuming he was some mythical being, not a human with human desires and biology. Finding out he fathered a child only double-underlined my questions about biological rules in Lost—one of the things you don’t want to think about too hard.

We don’t learn more about MM’s history, what exactly he is (and therefore what exactly Lauren is), we don’t learn what happened to make him forsake Lost and start a family thirty years ago, or why he then abandoned his family and went back. We don’t learn why he rejected Lauren when she arrived in Lost. I assume either he didn’t want anything to do with her and the questions that may arise, or he realized if Lauren’s lost then something probably happened to Mom, and his “no” was emotional denial and he immediately went to check on Mom. We don’t even learn why he’s called the “Missing Man”—because he goes missing, or because he can find what people are missing? Neither make complete sense—he doesn’t go missing regularly, and he can’t actually find what people are missing, just give them clues to help them figure it out for themselves—but hey, alliteration’s fun.

• We don’t learn any more about Peter, about where he came from, his tattoos, how he learned knife wielding, how the Missing Man rejected him, or what “I nearly destroyed his soul” meant. (Forget the trilogy, it feels like there was a prequel that never saw the light of day.)

Peter didn’t inspire as much swooning upon reread. I didn’t necessarily think he and his cryptic ways were more or less annoying than before, or that he was more or less attractive (though this time I did get sick of hearing how “beautiful” he was), but I’ve come to realize I firmly ain’t having what he’s trying to sell about Lost. “This place has beauty, too, if any of you would bother to see it,” he said, and he’s not wrong; there’s great opportunity in being lost and in Lost—if you don’t give in to despair first. Buuuut I like having access to modern medicine. And being able to acquire sterile toiletries when I need to, as well as healthy, uncontaminated food. And living free of mold and dust. And being able to roam at night without fearing I’d be eaten by wild dogs or feral pigs. The privilege that comes with modern civilization—I appreciate you so.

Durst also tried to instill that there was an element of danger to Peter, but I never felt that. He was just a very, very lonely man.

• I kept waiting for a dog to join their troupe. For one with big, sad eyes to follow them home and never leave. But nope.

• Lauren never colors the colorless streak in her hair. She could have done it as part of finding herself in Lost, or perhaps more appropriately after Mom died and Lauren decided she would never work at that corporate place again. At the end Peter plays with her hair and I thought, “There! He could have played with the colored strands and it could have been all symbolic!”

• It would have been interesting if Lauren had asthma, considering all the dust and mold, or some other condition with a limited amount of medication. But that would have shone a light on the biological consequences of Lost that Durst seemed determined to ignore.

• Lauren put nails pointed up on the window sills, yet she and Peter sure jump out windows a lot and don’t get hurt. I can only assume she didn’t do all the windows?

• I’m not sure why they used an old-fashioned tape recorder when Lost is littered with smartphones. I assume chargers, too, because I lose mine all the time. So would it not have been easier to record the dogs on a smartphone than a tape recorder they had to keep supplied with batteries and fresh tapes? The recording is never mentioned again after they make it, though, so maybe they didn’t even use it.

• We never learn why Sean went into the void, or what he and Victoria were doing that they had to be careful of the void. Lauren asks a lot of our questions that the narrative just sidesteps.

• I didn’t like how Claire was handled in the end. I can forgive accidentally sending her home because Lauren didn’t realize she could, but when Lauren went to see Claire in Scottsdale, I hate that she didn’t make actual contact with Claire. Not only did Claire deserve assurance that Lost had been real and she wasn’t crazy, but she also deserved to know Lauren kept her promise to find her, and also to make the choice whether or not to go back, especially since the choice to return home had been taken from her. A conversation would have been nice, but I’d have been satisfied with them making eye contact and exchanging grateful I’m-okay-don’t-worry-about-me waves. Bonus points if they’d established a special “I’m safe” whistle or gesture earlier in the story and used it now. But no.

• I was absolutely shocked at how quickly and easily Lauren believed Lost had been a dream. I’d have understood doubts, even strong doubts, but how was Google not her second priority after seeing her mom? I’d have googled everyone from Lost purely for curiosity’s sake, if not to at least confirm they weren’t real.

• Alternatively, it would have been interesting if someone at the hospital had, upon seeing Lauren’s drawings of Lost, mentioned in passing that a drawing looked familiar, or that they once knew someone or somewhere that looked like that.

• MM is apparently gone for good in the end? How? There’s so much he could have explained to Lauren and taught her about their powers and purpose, not the least of which is how she could travel between Lost and the real world via “a curl of dusty mist” like he did.

• I was surprised Sean and Victoria weren’t desperately exchanging personal information as they were fading back into real life, because I doubt they’ll return in the same spot and will have to find each other somehow. (That’s assuming they’re contemporaries—what if they’d gone missing years apart? See, time rules are ignored.) I’m sure they had already shared a lot with each other, but I’d still have been repeating full name and address over and over.

• Tiffany calling Lauren “Voldemort” seemed odd to me—it’s entirely possible she read a lost copy of Harry Potter in the decades she was in Lost, but she didn’t strike me as a reader, and Sorcerer’s Stone was released a decade after she died.

• “Even in the wind, the swings don’t move.” Two paragraphs later: “then the wind blows harder and one of the swings squeaks as it swings back and forth.” Which is it, Durst?

• Lauren leaves Claire a note, but Claire’s six—how much can she even read? Unless Peter’s been teaching her?

• The same dolphin is in turns referred to as a him, an it, and a her.

• Lauren tells Barrett that artist types are more likely to burn food, but I don’t remember her ever burning any.

• Other reviews comment on the writing. It didn’t particularly bother me, but I see where they’re coming from. Durst’s writing can be stilted at times. For example, “The playground is enclosed by a chain-link fence. Kids are swarming over it.” A smoother, less passive way to write that would be: “A chain-link fence encloses a playground swarming with kids.”

• When Peter pushes her car out of the void, “his skin glistens slightly from a sheen of sweat” but later Lauren thinks “he pushed my car to town without breaking a sweat.” You could argue she was being figurative, but it could have been worded without presenting a blatant contradiction.

Overall, I’m just so disappointed. Rickety worldbuilding, incompetent editing. I’m glad we got a new ending that wrapped a few things up, especially since there’s no indication that books 2 and 3 will ever see the light of day, but I wish Durst had actually expanded this book enough to provide more answers. I also wish I knew why she didn’t just self-publish the rest of the trilogy. She could have crowd-funded—I’d have donated! Maybe she’ll put something up on her website some day: “Lost FAQs.”

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