Book Review: Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire

About the Book

Welcome to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go.

If you ever lost a sock, you’ll find it here.
If you ever wondered about a favorite toy from childhood… it’s probably sitting on a shelf in the back.
And the headphones that you swore this time you’d keep safe? You guessed it….

Antoinette has lost her father. Metaphorically. He’s not in the Shop, and she’ll never see him again. But when Antsy finds herself lost (literally, this time), she discovers that however many doors open for her, leaving the Shop for good might not be as simple as it sounds.

And stepping through those doors exacts a price.

Lost in the Moment and Found tells us that childhood and innocence, once lost, can never be found.

My Review

This is such a magical series. This is the first book I’ve listened to rather than read, and I must admit that I enjoyed it much more than expected – and more than I’ve enjoyed reading many of the books. The narrator does a marvelous job with pacing and tone, and it really added a depth to the telling.

There is a horrific aspect to the tale – all of the lost children in the series become lost as an escape and unfortunately sometimes escape is about running from rather than running to…. McGuire does an excellent job establishing a sense of menace and fear without ever being explicit about the threat poor Antsy faces. It made the dread and confusion of being a child suddenly and brutally forced into an adult world all the more horrifying and was masterfully managed. And I couldn’t tell you the last time I cried as hard while reading as I did when Antsy’s world first fell apart…

McGuire does a fabulous job at world building in all her writing, but never more so than in these books about the lost children.. She has a magnificent sense for the magic, tragedy, joy and bewildering consisting l confusion of childhood. This was a standalone that felt fully incorporated into the universe of the Wayward Children and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my obligation-free review copy.