Customer Reviews

The Lost Girls: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished _The Lost Girls_ and absolutely love the book. I
don't remember ever laughing this delightedly, this often, and yet feeling,at the same time, the profundity of the analysis of the human condition -- all around.

The Lost Girls features Wendy Darling Braverman, the same Wendy from the beloved Peter Pan story. All the Darling women have to be whisked away to the Neverland in their teenage years, and they all fall in love with the whimsical boy, Peter Pan. Wendy thinks she will not grow up, but eventually she does, and so continues the Darling women legacy that began with her great-great grandmother, Great-Nana. Wendy struggles with her love for Peter in Neverland and learning how to live and grow up in the real world, and her ambivalence puts strain on her new family of an eccentric sound-loving husband and her Goth daughter. Wendy and her daughter Berry both have to deal with growing up, wild imaginations, and learning how to cultivate a healthy mother-daughter relationship. This book has outstanding characters, including her author mother who writes about men who cannot grow up and her great-great grandmother with an impressive bosom and a knack for telling stories. Wendy's grandmother is missing in action for the longest time, but she eventually makes a charming reappearance in Wendy's life. I really have not come upon many books like The Lost Girls, with this blunt but interesting prose writing. Adorable and cute, although the book tends to ramble and leave me wondering where the narrative was going. Interesting book indeed!

A whimsical and darling story with a luminous ending. You won't want it to end. Read it over a weekend, didn't want to leave the warm and engaging characters or the lyrical and magical world Laurie Fox created in these pages. Her writing is assured and poetic -- treat yourself to this book!

I was disappointed and find that it spoiled my own happy Peter Pan fantasies.

It was an interesting idea but I do not love the story the author chose to tell. Intentionally or unintentionally, she doesn't show Peter's charm or attraction or display any reason at all why these women would have loved him so much that they would attempt suicide and go crazy once he left them. I didn't understand the -why- of their bizarre dynasty. And then the author gives the narrator this awesome, tough, no-nonsense daughter and I would really have enjoyed reading a story about her adventures in Neverland, kicking Peter's rear into shape or going off and doing her own thing on the island if all they'll grant her is domestic servitude. But the author chooses not to explore this path at all. Then why create such an awesome character with such potential? Is it just to drive me nuts?