Rating: 
Summary: A transitional piece
Review: Maguire's latest book is not the same as the prior two, which earned wide acclaim and threatened to stereotype this author. "Lost" is a subtler book, with more oblique and indeterminant ties to other myths and stories, and hints at this being a transitional work, the end of the "fairy tale" trilogy for Maguire.Readers interested in familiar treatments by Maguire may be disappointed. Others, more interested in watching an author continue to grow and explore his boundaries, may find a great deal of interest, and a compelling, well-told tale in its own right.
Rating: 
Summary: weird and wonderful
Review: A writer whose original, irreverent takes on classic stories like Cinderella ("Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister") and the Wizard of Oz ("Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West") have earned him an eager following and a place on the bestseller lists, Gregory Maguire's latest, "Lost" combines Scrooge and Jack the Ripper in a modern ghost story of a cranky American in London. Too young to be so cynical and curmudgeonly, Winifred Rudge is a children's author who made it big on adult lists with a pseudonymous astrology book and is now at work on a novel featuring Wendy Pritzke, "a novelist obsessed with the story of Jack the Ripper. Winnie didn't know if Jack the Ripper would end up being a character or a red herring in some domestic trial of Wendy's. The chronic fun of writing, the distraction of it, was not knowing." Winnie, though, is not having much fun, nor does she want to. She heads to London where her stepcousin and close friend John Comester lives in a row house once owned by Winnie's great-great-grandfather, said to be the inspiration for Dickens' Scrooge. There she plans to immerse herself in Wendy's character and begin work on her book. But even before she gets on the plane, things start to go strange, in small ways. And when she arrives at the London flat, John is away, his furniture covered in dust sheets, workers in his kitchen and no message left for her. Spurning all overtures of friendliness while trying to get to the bottom of John's disappearance, Winnie presents her rude and prickly side and learns nothing. Is it her, or is John's office really evasive, his friends really mystified? Meanwhile, the workmen in John's kitchen are making little progress. Loud knocking from inside the wall has stymied them. " 'What have you done with John?' she said. She couldn't look toward the pantry as the raps began again, a sequence of five hollow ominous penetrating thumps." Looking for John, trying to find some reasonable explanation for the knocks, Winnie calls on the neighbors, including John's sometime girlfriend, and a dotty old woman with too many cats, named Mrs. Maddingly. She muses on her situation through Wendy's eyes. Could the ghost in the wall be the remains of Jack the Ripper? Killed and walled up by a relative of his last almost-victim? As the haunting proceeds, the mysteries mount. Is Winnie paranoid or is there some conspiracy against her, worldly or otherwise? Is John avoiding her or has something befallen him? Was Jack the Ripper ever in Hampstead? Events begin to move at alarming speed. One of the workmen is injured by the house, a psychic recoils from Winnie, a portly American blunders onto the scene, offering help, Wendy's story begins to hurtle beyond Winnie's control, bringing Winnie's own narration into question. Maguire combines humor, mystery and menace adroitly. His prose is muscular, leading the reader down a twisting, doubling, circling path where reality shifts are the norm. Fans will not be disappointed and newcomers with be baffled and enchanted.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost should have been titled BUNK
Review: Lost was wrongly named; it should have been called Bunk.
Lost was also wrongly (falsely) marketed. It purports to be in the tradition of Maguire's previsous two bestsellers, but it's NOT.
Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister were marvellous takeoffs on the theme of the wicked witch in the Oz series and Cinderella, using familiar characters as a legitimate base for a wholly different tale. The blurb and marketing for Lost pretend to be about Scrooge and Jack the Ripper (there's an odd combo) in the same way. Well, you can say that their names are mentioned. But that's about it. The cover designs also continue the series theme. But I don't think the publishers actually read anything but an original outline or precis, because the book bears NO resemblance to its forbearers. What IS the story about? Are you ready for this? It's about some neurotic American writer who is 'mysteriously' obsessed with her British cousin and with babies. Huh? Yup. Huh!
The opening seems totally inexplicable--she is pretending to be a prospective foster mom in New England. But she's outted as a writer and literally outted (as in kicked out). After nil transition, the book completely turns around, dumps Winnie in London and goes from bad to worse to schizophrenia. There are literally two books being written here---unfortunately, neither one of them is good. One is about Winnie's sojourn in London and some bizarre happenings at the flat she's occupying. The other is about Winnie's alter id, writer Wendy, who starts out looking for Jack the Ripper in modern London but spends most of the book tromping through a ridiculously frigid affair in wintertime Romania. Meanwhile, Winnie is obessively but nonproductively trying to figure out where her cousin John is. Oh and the Scrooge connection? (Remember the premise? Why should you? Maguire didn't.) Well, Winnie has a great great great grandfather Rudge (pronounced Rooge I guess)whose picture sits on the floor of one room. Yup, that's the whole connection folks. Feel cheated? Confused? Wait. It gets worse. Midstream the book changes from a grand guignol horror story (complete with awful things done to cats) to a wistful and pathetic ghost story about mothers and babies. All this while Wendy's awful Romanian tryst keeps interrupting with a Who Cares story. Believe it or not, the underlying theme of this whole mess seems to be some male author trying to relate to the primitive connection between a mother and her infant. It comes off more as Queen for a Day as told to (and reported by) some radio ghoul talk show host.
I don't know what book Maguire had in mind, but I think he got LOST on his way to writing it. I have to laugh--as I came here to post the review, I saw many others had the same reaction about Maguire getting lost LOL.
Rating:
Summary: What happened?????
Review: I completely agree with the other reviewer who also bought all three of his books in hardcover because his first was so good, and the second was so good, but this third one...WHAT HAPPENED??? I was extremely disappointed. This book was not the caliber I am used to seeing from this author. I hope that whatever went wrong fixes itself before he writes a fourth book.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: After WICKED and CONFESSIONS, I bought this book without hestitation. Unfortunately, it failed to meet the expectations created by the earlier books. While filled with Maguire's characteristic delightful prose, the story felt forced and incompletely developed. I never gained that willing suspension of disbelief. The fine prose carried me along, and my positive feelings about the earlier work left me hoping that the book would improve. In the end, I felt dissatisfied. A friend asked, "What's it about?" All I could say was, "I dunno, exactly." I fear Maguire didn't quite know either.
Rating:
Summary: bittersweet feelings
Review: Mr. Maguire is in my top ten authors file and did not hesitate one second to buy his latest (in hardcover, which I NEVER do). I was really surprised about the time period the book takes place in, Maguire incorporates cell phones, computers, and the like to make this tale modern unlike his previous books. I was terribly confused for a while as to what is real and what is fantasy. The main character Winnie is awesome but she is so out of touch with reality herself that she makes it difficult for the reader to see the difference. I think that Gregory Maguire is an absolute genius in this book. I also think that it is good for his audience to not deliver the same style as before but venture into something unique and different. He pushes his way through this book by miraculously stumping and confusing his readers and I can appreciate that. Wicked, however, is still my all time fave of Maguires.
Sidenote: I was really hoping that he would do an Alice book from a different perspective. I was just wondering, if he used so many illusions to Alice in Lost, will he ever write an retelling of the Alice story? I hope so.
Rating:
Summary: A TOUCH OF HORROR, BUT REALLY HUMAN
Review: I found Gregory Maguire's LOST to be unsettling. I
say that as a compliment. Not many books unsettle
me anymore. I've read other books by Maguire, and
this one was a rougher read. By that I mean the
book was rougher on me as a reader. Winnie's struggle,
which at first seemed minor, became my own. I
would very highly recommend this book, which was
horrific because of its inate humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Not for Old Fans
Review: If you pick up Lost expecting it to be like Ugly Stepsister or Wicked then you will be disappointed. This aint a fractured fairytale but it is a fascinating book that stands apart from the author's previous work. The heroine Winnie is a difficult woman. She's made bad choices, and suffered a heart breaking loss that turns her in a Scrooge-like figure. No real friends, no family except one step cousin in England and a talent for disliking people. Like her ancestor, who is believed to be the model for Scrooge she has completely shut herself off from happiness. Like Scrooge she's haunted. This book is at times deeply offensive, sometimes funny and it has some real moments of classic terror. Lost is a perfect title. Winnie is lost, it seems that her cousin John is lost and lost boys figure very strongly in the plot. I started reading this book at 9 AM and finnished it around midnight. The ending is not strong enough by any means and was so sublte that I felt let down.
Rating: 
Summary: Full of twists and turns
Review: Gregory Maguire's "Lost," although a quick read, will keep your interest, as the plot features twists and turns to make your head spin. Do not expect all the threads to be neatly tied up at the end: They aren't. This is an unusual novel: Part mystery, part ghost story, part historical fiction, with a dose of journey-to-self-discovery on the part of Winnie, the main character.
As you are reading along, you will find the mundane suddenly jarred up against the truly bizarre. Expect the unexpected, go with the flow, and you will be rewarded with a diverting read.
"Lost" is just the thing for a chilly night in late October, as the full moon shines and the leaves swirl.
Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly realistic
Review: Maguire once again succeeded in setting the stage and completely engulfing me into the story. It wasn't long after picking up the book that the creeks around the house had me switching on all the lights. A chilling read!
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