Rating: Summary: Once again, a book I couldn't put down...... Review: Both of Maguire's previous adult fictions kept me enthralled. Each one I read from start to finish in one sitting. I love his work and highly anticpiated Lost and will continue to wait for his next work. This story of a woman searching for a fictional character finds more than she was expecting in her English ancesteral home. She grapples with physical apparitians as well as her own mental ghosts. Maguire tells his stories in a way that peaks the curiosity and keeps you reading for more!
Rating: Summary: Get Lost -- wait, come back here, I mean buy the book! Review: Gregory Maguire's Wicked is my all-time favorite book, so I'll buy just about any novel he puts out. My enjoyment of Lost fell somewhere between Wicked (which I adored and just recently finished re-reading) and Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister (which I liked but was a bit disappointed with).I won't go into the plot detail because you can find that elsewhere, and knowing too much of this particular story really could ruin it. Let me just say the story involves a number of "mysteries" (for lack of a better word), most of which are solved by the end. Up until we find out what is really going on, I was absolutely hooked -- I had a number of wild theories that would change at the drop of a hat. Once we found out the "truth," the novel lost some interest for me (as most mysteries do once solved), but I still enjoyed what I was reading. Like Wicked, once I was finished I was left with some unanswered questions, but unlike Wicked (which deserves a good sequel), this story seems over and done with. I would recommend this novel to fans of Maguire, Dickens, ghost stories, mysteries, and/or childhood stories like "Peter Pan" or "Alice in Wonderland."
Rating: Summary: "Lost" is aptly named... Review: "Lost" is aptly titled, because the reader feels lost for the first two thirds of the novel. In the final third, you discover some answers, but find they weren't really answers worth knowing. This novel is written in the third person but the point of view is first person, which leaves the reader feeling confused, muddied, and, well, lost. While I realize this may have been the point, it really doesn't work here. Finally, I don't think the author really understands women, which is unfortunate, since the protagonist and many of the characters are female. They all end up feeling underdeveloped and stilted, caricatures of real women. Their dialogue is inexplicable in some cases, and often downright rude for no apparent reason. Frankly, I was very disappointed. Get this one from the library if you must read it, or wait for the paperback. Better yet, take out your copy of "Wicked" and re-read that instead.
Rating: Summary: "Lost" seems to be missing something Review: After reading "Wicked" and "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister", I had been really looking forward to Maguire's next foray into the flip-side of Fairy Tales. I was a little disappointed after reading "Lost". In his latest work, Maguire tells the story of an American writer, Winnie Rudge, who travels to England to research a fictional novel she is writing about a girl who is searching for the ghost of Jack the Ripper (and partly to escape her own troubled past). However, when Winnie arrives at the family house in Hampstead, she finds her host/cousin has disappeared and his flat seems to be haunted. But, is this haunting actually the ghost of Jack the Ripper or is it the spirit of her great-great grandfather who was believed to be the inspiration for Dicken's A Christmas Carol? Or is the Ghostly presence something else entirely? I think what was most disappointing was that there didn't seem to be a central Tale holding the story together. There seemed to be several different stories referenced, from "Jack the Ripper" and "A Christmas Carol" to "Peter Pan" and even "Alice in Wonderland". What I love so much about Maguires previous books are that I remembered reading the original Tales as a child and it was such fun to see a "behind the scenes" kind of viewpoint into my favorite childrens novels. I felt that "Lost" was lacking this quality. For Maguire fans, while I would still recommend this title, I would advise not to hold onto such high expectations as I did or you will end up a little disappointed in the
Rating: Summary: So Many Loose Ends Review: I'll admit I read this book cover to cover, but it wasn't an enjoyable experience in the end. So many questions left unanswered -- so many dead ends to the different plot lines. I'd write a longer review, but I have already forgotten much of it (it was that unremarkable) and it's only been a week. Winnie's character and the haunter herself (Gervasa) never really let their stories develop fully. It's like Maguire got tired of writing. I am reading "Confessions" now -- I'll let you know if it's any better. I don't normally write these as "anonymous", but don't want to get flamed -- maybe it was such a "deep" book - I just missed something.
Rating: Summary: Lost is the right name for this book! Review: Let me first start off by saying that, I am usually a Terry Maguire Fan. Everything about this book was Lost, the main character Winnie, the plot, me, and the usual Terry Maguire spin. He touches up Jack the Ripper and Dracula, but really the focus should have been on the haunting of Ozias Rudge how that paralleled Dickens and Winnie herself. Winnie would almost become endearing then act completely out of character. Few other characters were formed the way Terry usually allows. The only thing that really fit was the title. I think if you skip this book you won't be Lost for it.
Rating: Summary: Good...but not what I expected. Review: I feel a bit mislead by "Lost," what with the excellent cover art and the blurb on back promising distant connections with "A Christmas Carol" and Ebenezer Scrooge. I was expecting the ghost of the old miser to make an appearance eventually, perhaps this time in the Marley role, but old Scrooge turned out to be a minor character, much like Saucy Jack, Peter Pan, and the host of other literary characters who pop in and out of the main characters active imagination. Instead, the story is set in very modern London, with a writer whose past is haunted by more than ghosts, and whose present is a muddled, complex mystery of human emotion. Throughout, she is constantly searching for a story, and one feels that "Lost" is also searching for a story, but it always remains just out of reach. Having a decent background in English literature and fact is helpful in understanding the book. I have read Alan Moore's "From Hell," so I am somewhat familiar with the Jack the Ripper murders and of course I have read "A Christmas Carol." These stories are used as a frame over which the main story is stretched. All in all, I enjoyed the various twists and turns, misleading back alleys and strange adventures that "Lost" took me on, and had I been better prepared for the type of book that it is, I would have enjoyed it more.
Rating: Summary: Lost story line Review: What's lost here is the story line! This book is so different from Maguire's other 3 books, it is as though someone else wrote it. Is this what happens when a publisher urges a quick sequel to best-sellers?
Rating: Summary: DON'T..... Review: Don't buy, borrow or steal this book. It is beyond mind-numbing. It is barren of thought, colorless bordering on gray/black, bland to the taste of mildew, banal, pointless, tedious.....yada, yada, yada. This man sits with a thesaurus writing words to compose his witless story. A tractor couldn't plow through the boring mess. There are so many thrilling books on the supernatural - bypass this or fall into a chasm of writing despair.
Rating: Summary: i love maguire but i hate this book Review: this book was attrociously written. i am a big fan of maguires works with wicked, confessions of an ugly stepsister, and mirror mirror. this just sucked though.
it was boring and incomplete. there wasnt a steady plot for you to follow what the goal or the climax of the book was. it just kept jumping to other things. its like he wrote this book in two minutes. scrooge had nothing to do with the plat and neither did jack the ripper.
to top it off the ending was incredibly ridiculous. i mean what was all the run around for? if u read the book youd probably understand my harshness but by all means i was really diassapointed by this work.
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