The Lovely and the Lost by Jennifer Lynn Barnes - ESSENTIAL

The Lovely and the Lost by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, 325 pages.  Freeform Books (Disney), 2019.  $18.  

Content: Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: PG.  

BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS - ESSENTIAL

AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH 

Kira has spent the bulk of her teen years helping her foster mother, Cady, raise search and rescue dogs.  Kira and her dog Saskia are a good team together, but both of them are a bit broken from their own traumatic childhoods.  When a six-year old girl goes missing in the Sierra Glade Mountains, Kira goes with her mother Cady to help look for the girl.  What Kira finds is Cady’s family secrets, a cute boy with his own broken past and Kira learns her own strengths.  

I totally enjoyed this book.  I liked the different layers of the story with intense moments of action.  I liked the characters and the setting.  There are times where I laughed out loud because some of the dialogue is hilarious.  I also liked that it has clean content.  There is a burial site that is found but it is isn’t graphic.  The characters are almost graduating from high school, so it fits better in middle and high school.  

Reviewer, C. Peterson