About this title: Long-listed for the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and "The Guardian" First Book Award, "What Was Lost" is a tender and sharply observant debut novel about a missing young girl.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very good. Very minimal damage to the cover (no holes or tears, only minimal scuff marks), in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, minimal to no highlighting/under. read more
Description: Like New. May be shiny, in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, no damage to binding, may have a remainder mark. read more
Description: Good. 0805088334 Former library item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned. Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. read more
"Despite many glowing reviews for this book, I must agree with the few who questioned the glowing reviews! I did not read the entire book so bear with me for a moment.....I read the first part of the story that was being told by a ten year old girl who wanted nothing more in life than to be a private detective - about 1/4 of the book. She spent her time observing and recording people, places, & things, mainly at a certain mall, expecting that she would one day help in solving a crime. This sounds like it could be interesting! But I was BORED stiff. There was no plot or direction in this portion of the book, only observations that may or may not pertain to something in the future. I was reading and constantly asking myself, 'What does this have to do with anything?' or 'Where is this going?' I put the book down several times declaring that I would read no more. But my other bookclub members were reading it and enjoying it enough to continue, so I tried a few times to slog through it. Later I decided that maybe the 20-years-later-mystery portion would read better and actually have a story to tell. It was a little better but just too much rambling in my opinion. I did go to the last couple chapters and read those to find out how the mystery resolves so that I'm not entirely clueless when my bookclub meets again. I probably read about 1/3 of the total book. I hate feeling like I wasted my time reading a book, but in this case, I do.
You win some, you lose some. For me, this was a big loser."
"A good mystery. Kate Meaney "works" as a junior detective, trailing potential suspects and sharpening her observation skills so that when she grows up, she can become a full-fledged detective. During her daily travels through the neighborhood, she becomes friends with Adrian, a 22 year old shopkeeper who, unlike most adults Kate knows, treats her with respect. When Kate goes missing, Adrian is the top suspect. Twenty years later Adrian's little sister Lisa works in a dead end job at the mall, missing her older brother who ran away long ago after being suspected in the disappearance of a local girl. Lisa meets a mall security guard, Kurt, who has been seeing visions of a young girl on the security monitors. Together they try to determine what actually happened to Kate Meaney twenty years before. This was a great story - you know from the beginning that something is going to happen to Kate, which raises the suspense as the whole first section of the book is told from Kate's perspective. As the story moves to the adult perspectives of Lisa and Kurt, you get the feeling that perhaps more than Kate has gone missing from the lives of those at the mall. Sprinkled throughout are short vignettes detailing the thoughts of anonymous mall shoppers which mirror the despair of the main characters. A really well done story, the way things connect in the end is very satisfying."
"This is almost a 5 star review, and the only reason it isn't is because I listened to the audiobook edition, which was narrated SO brilliantly by Catherine Skinner that it may well have increased my love for the book. All the action centers around Green Oaks, a shopping mall in Birmingham, and never was a shopping mall such a depressing, cynical, malignant, and soul-deadening character. In one segment of this story, 10-year-old Kate, a very odd yet wonderful loner whose main companion is a stuffed monkey, goes around very seriously looking for crimes to solve - a bit like Harriet the Spy but more focused on crime than on basic human foibles. She is such a compelling character that it's wrenching to move 20 years ahead to the present. Kate has been missing all this time, has in fact turned into an unsolved mystery herself, and a couple sadsack but luckily not entirely hopeless employees at Green Oaks find themselves compelled to find out what happened to her.
Although Kurt (the depressed and grieving security guard) and Lisa (caught in a mindless, go-nowhere job at a record store) are both well-developed - you learn to care about them even as you want to shake them hard and yell at them to get out of Green Oaks before they mummify entirely), it's Kate who is the most alive and charismatic character of them all. She is energetic and focused and weird as all get out - my favorite character in a long, long time. This book resonates."
"For anyone who is considering reading this novel, this is my disclaimer. The first 20 pages or so are slow, but after you read those pages you're out of the woods. KEEP READING. I assure you it's worth it.
This novel was an unexpected treasure. I was impressed with O'Flynn's perception of today's generation and it's values (or lack there of.) I haven't come across many good modern novels talking about today's society. That wasn't really the focus of the book, but it was probably my second favorite aspect of it.
My favorite part of the book would definitely have to be the way in which the characters live and how much they know about the other characters in the book. I love the way Kurt's family operated. It seems as if none of them truly knew and understood one another, despite the fact that they've known each other their entire lives.
By reading this book, it made me second guess all of the assumptions i made about the people i don't like, and do like! It was like having a small epiphany. (Small, small.)
If you want a quick, easy read without wasting your time, I would highly recommend this book."
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