How To Be Lost

How To Be Lost

by Amanda Eyre Ward

Genre: Fiction

Synopsis:  To their neighbors in suburban Holt, New York, the Winters family has it all, a grand home, a trio of radiant daughters, and a sense that they are safe if their affluent corner of America.  But when five-year-old Ellie disappears, the fault lines within the Winters family are exposed.  Joseph, once a successful businessman, succumbs to his demons.  Isabelle retreats into memories of her debutante days in Savannah, Georgia.  And Ellie's bereft sisters grow apart.  Madeline reluctantly stays home, while Caroline runs away.

Fifteen years later, Caroline, now a New Orleans cocktail waitress, sees a photograph of a woman in a magazine.  Convinced that it is Ellie all grown up, Caroline embarks on a search for her missing sister, armed with Xerox copies of the photograph, an amateur detective guide, and a cooler of Dixie beer.  As Caroline travels through the New Mexico desert, the mountains of Colorado, and the smoky underworld of Montana, she devotes herself to salvaging her broken family.

From the book jacket

Review:  I wanted to like this book but I just couldn't.  The beginning seemed so abrupt to me as it moved from chapter to chapter.  I didn't feel the flow of a well written book.  I also didn't like any of the characters because this book was really lacking in character development.  All I knew about Caroline was that she was a trashy girl who ran away from problems.  The chapters are interspersed with letters written by someone named Agnes Fowler and we have NO idea how she fits in the book.  Her letters make here seem like an older lady but yet she is quite young.  The one letter she writes about her ideal date seems TOTALLY out of the blue and totally uncalled for in this book.  There are parts of this book that are crude and unnecessary.  It seems like the author couldn't decide if she was writing for a young crowd who likes chick lit and needed to throw in gratuitous swear words or if she was trying to rise above that and write a more well rounded novel.  Either way, the book didn't work.  The ending was terrible!  You are left completely hanging but yet I don't really care enough to wonder what happens to the family.

Rating:  2 stars