Library of Lost Things by Laura Taylor Namey - AVERAGE

Library of Lost Things by Laura Taylor Namey, 384 pages. Inkyard Press, 2019. $19.

Language: R (57 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG

BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

Darcy hides her real life from everyone but her closest friend, choosing instead to live in the pages of fictional stories. She’s learned to package her life nicely and keep everything separated as it should be, until things start to unravel with the threat of her eighteenth birthday and a new, responsible apartment manager. Maybe things aren’t as perfectly cut as Darcy pretends they are.

Having finished the story, I love how the title encapsulates so much of what happens between the covers of this book. We’re all a little lost, as Darcy and readers discover on their journey together. Without having experienced many of the things Darcy has to deal with in her life, I feel a kinship with her as the words that helped her were able to touch me, too. I found that this book is about learning how to deal with seemingly impossible situations and trying to understand that this life is about trying, learning, and doing better today than you did yesterday -- ideas that we all need to learn to apply in our lives. And I appreciate that Namey was able to all of this and more with real, relatable, non-excessively-dramatic conflict. The only reason I have marked this book as "optional" is because of the language.

Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen