Rating: 
Summary: Lost my train of thought
Review: I've stewed on what I would say about this book for about a month now. I kept coming back to it and asking myself: "Was there something I missed? Did it just go over my head? Did I bring too many pre-formed opinions about what the book would be like based on reading Wicked?"The answers are: possibly, possibly and probably. However, ahem, in self-defense, I think this novel truly has a lot of structural problems that render it, well, just not very good. The protagonist, Winnie, is a thoroughly unsympathetic character (which is okay, by me, just be interesting to make up for it), who flies to London looking for what we will discover is lost love, lost purpose, lost inspiration. She finds a mysterious rattle in the chimney of her family home that may be: 1) the ghost of her ancestor (Dickens' inspiration, supposedly, for Scrooge), 2) Jack the Ripper's ghost, 3) a ghost of one of Jack the Ripper's victims, 4) my little dog Fluffy, so recently and dearly departed. The mystery of the rattle essentially absorbs the first half of the book. Winnie's internal dialogue rather than always being in first person, is occasionally, and apparently randomly, disintermediated and projected into the narrative of a character that she herself is writing about: Wendy. Wendy is the victim of Jack the Ripper who is going to fight back in the book Winnie is writing. If it sounds confusing, it is, frustrating also. Mr. Maguire cuts into the prose of this "book within a book" at crucial moments within the development of the plot, leaving me wondering what just happened. Okay, so in justice, maybe this is a "postmodern" novel, meaning our expectations are challenged because we are forced to view things in strange and novel ways. For example, with Wicked, one gets a completely different sense of the "reality" of the Land of Oz by viewing things from the Witch's point of view. However, there MUST be some relational and narrative framework built that makes sense in the story. And if the artistic intent is that the structural narrative should echo on another level Wendy's state of mind, it's just too much to ask of the reader. In the end, we're forced to conclude that Winnie is, in fact, lost and will probably remain so. It's unfortunate that the framework of the story is so fractured. I think Mr. Maguire could have created an interesting book that does say something about the emptiness of many people's lives. However, Lost just doesn't succeed in this attempt.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply Disappointing
Review: I've been an Amazon customer since the beginning of the site (when they just sold books) and this is the first time I've felt compelled to write a review. Why? Because this is just a bad, bad book. Thoroughly unsatisfying from the first word to the last. I bought Lost after picking up Wicked and really enjoying it (saw the musical, too and - while I generally hate musicals - I enjoyed that). I was a huge fan of how Maguire took a very familiar fictional world and essentially wrote a character-based history book for it. I thought it was amazing that he could take a story everyone knew so well and construct ANOTHER story around its characters that still kept you guessing from page to page. My expectation with Lost was similar. Based on the jacket copy, I expected an intricate story that merged the fictional world of Dickens' Christmas Carol and the non-fictional world of the Jack the Ripper mystery into a fantastic tapestry of quasi-fiction. Boy, was I wrong. From the first page, you expect Maguire to cast his net out onto you, dragging you into the story (whether you want to or not!) via characters and events that are just too tantalizing in their vague familiarity. Since the book is - according to its jacket copy - an amalgam of Christmas Carol mythology and Jack the Ripper theories, you expect these connections to be made quickly and you want there to be some central story that ties them together. But these desires are for naught. Maguire spends the first 1/2 - 2/3 of the book building and shaping our vision of Winnie, the protagonist (or, semi-confusingly, Wendy, the character in a book Winnie is attempting to write). Let's forget how contrived the whole "book about a writer writing a book" premise is. Maguire's implementation of this idea - via differently-fonted text - is clumsy at best. But that's not even the worst part! The protagonist, Winnie, is someone I simply didn't care for from the first description of her. And when I say "didn't care for," I mean I REALLY didn't care. I didn't hate her (which, of course, would be the opposite of loving her). I simply didn't care. And that doesn't change throughout the whole book! You keep on waiting for Maguire to reveal something about her that will make her a sympathetic character, but it never happens. By the time he employs some clichéd device about some tragedy that happened to her in her past, you just don't care. Like being blindfolded at a surprise party thrown for you only to discover there are only 2 people you don't really like in front of you. Onto the writing of the book. I thought the story in Wicked was solid and so forgave Maguire the self-indulgent and long-winded prose that consumed so much of the book. But in Lost, the story isn't strong enough to support such indulgences and they bulge out of it like malignant tumors. His too-many analogies are bristling with the insecurity of the guy at a party who drops Nietzsche quotes to make people think he's smart. The similes are equally inaccessible and seem to account for a full ½ of the book's pages. Character development is lop-sided (i.e., John and his girlfriend) and the exposition - which would have been overbearing with the most economical writer - is simply laborious under the weight of Maguire's desire to show you just how smart he is. If you're breaking your cherry on Maguire's work with Lost, then you may not be so sensitive to the issues I just raised. But, after reading the marketing material for Lost, you'd at least expect a story that compellingly mixes the mythologies of Ebenezer Scrooge and Jack the Ripper And on this score, you, too, would be disappointed. A disappointment that's only compounded for people who've read Wicked and expect a similar handling of familiar mythologies. A Christmas Carol and Jack the Ripper figure - at best - tangentially into Lost's story. Further, Maguire makes no attempt to connect the two (regardless of what the jacket copy tells you). Dickens' and Jack the Ripper's stories serve only to prop up the author's flaccid attempt at a parable. If the Ripper and Dickens were still alive today, they'd undoubtedly be sending Maguire a letter (return address: From Hell) chastising him for so horribly abusing the stories they worked so hard to write. Maguire's Lost lives up to the name (a title an un-established writer's agent would forbid him to use because of its unending abuse by critics). Character development, story, and historical & literary allusions are all so weak as to be simply boring. If you're looking for a story that combines these stories, you can stop looking because it hasn't been written yet. If you're looking for something that deals even tangentially with these subjects...you can stop looking because it hasn't been written yet. If you're simply a Maguire fan looking for another good Maguire book, you can stop...because it hasn't been written yet!
Rating: 
Summary: Unfulfilled Potential
Review: After having read his previous two novels, I was excited to get my hands on this one, especially with the premise outlined on the dust cover. However, it really didn't live up to it. "Lost" ended up being one of those books that you think about two days after you finish it, and you can't really remember what exactly happened. There were a lot of good ideas, they were just never fully realized. Check out Maguire's other novels instead.
Rating:
Summary: A disappointment for Maguire fans
Review: For those of you who have read "Wicked" or his other works you might be a bit disappointed by this book. The plot gets confusing and it's hard to understand where it might be going. The end is great though and if he would have concentrated on that story line throughout the book I would have given it five stars. Neverthless Maguire is an excellent writer and you will enjoy this one.
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: A bit of everything leaves you unsatisfied
Review: This novel certainly has everything: a supposedly real-life figure who inspired the character of Ebenezer Scrooge, a possible haunting, a possible madness, grief and loss, babies up for adoption in foreign countries, horror, sickness, and an unlikable lead character who gets on your nerves as you make your way through the book. It's not just this reviewer who finds this character trying - question #9 in the readers' discussion guide in the back of the book starts: "Some people find Winnie Rudge to be downright unlikable." Some readers might like the challenge of figuring out Winnie and looking for her good side, but I didn't. I love Gregory Maguire's books for being unique and strange. This one was not strange in a good way. If you read it first of all his works, you'll probably never go on to the others. Still, I can't pan it completely. I kept returning to the book; you definitely wonder what's going to happen and how the story will end. Ultimately, there just wasn't enough of anything in the story - for example, you expect it to be a retelling of "A Christmas Carol" but that story is really barely mentioned. Also, you really have to suspend disbelief to buy into the ending and that just didn't seem to fit by the time you've read that far. Start with another of the author's works and you'll be much happier.
Rating: 
Summary: Weird low scores... this is a Great book.
Review: A lot of people seem to have read _Wicked_, tried _Lost_ and been terribly disappointed. I found the book actually MORE satisfying than _Wicked_. I hope that you will give me a chance to sell you on _Lost_, because I think that you will enjoy it if you give it an honest chance. I read the book in the space of a two day business trip, and purposely begged off of social stuff and went to the airport four hours early so I could sit uninterrupted and read it. I think one of the benefits of _Wicked_ that made others prefer it, is that _Wicked_ takes place in a world we are all familiar with. We have a world already in our heads, a world that Maguire then manipulates and redraws in novel and jarring ways. In _Lost_, however, we are presented with a ghost story of sorts in the present day, and the world is not there for us at the start. It is the real world, but viewed through a unique and interesting lens. Maguire presents us with just as complex and ambivalent a heroine here as in _Wicked_. There are two narrative voices -- that of Winnie, and that of Winnie's character, Wendy, in the novel that Winnie is trying to write. As we all know, all characters in all works of fiction are in some way distillations of the author and friends and life. Plot points and locations are often taken from real life and manipulated to fit the story, and we learn most important information about Winnie's real life and real wounds through her attempt at a novel. It is a very simple but very effective technique, especially because Maguire's book is also a meditation on the way we construct narratives from our lives, both about ourselves and our place in the world, and about ghosts and the nature of haunting in our lives. We journey with Winnie from contemplating the usual canned ideas of ghosts-- that ghosts with unfinished business are haunting the world, unable to move on to the next world, lost in this one. And we move to a much deeper understanding of ghosts, and of Winnie. In _Lost_, there is unfinished business, there is haunting. And not just by ghosts. I found _Lost_ to be wonderful reading and highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: NOW I'M LOST
Review: "Lost" is a terrific title for this book: lost time, lost work, lost expectations, lost plot, lost readers...LOST. Maguire's book about an author trying to...well that's just it--I never really discovered what she was really trying to do: find her cousin? find lost cats? find herself? find a friend? find a bistro? find a phone? Maguire scores a couple of stars for some remarkable wordsmithing but then the wordsmithing gets so involved in some spots that one cannot tell whether this is really a book that the author wants others to read or a self-absorbed word game with himself that he hopes will leave all takers, but himself, in the dust. And what's all this about Scrooge? Yes there is some word play with the epic miser's name and a possible link to the heroine's family name. Is that it? Apparently so. So why waste wonderful cover art on what amounts to a minor aside in the story? But I digress! "Lost" is what I hope I can say about my copy of this book should anyone ask to borrow it. Douglas McAllister
Rating:
Summary: Is this really....
Review: a product of the same author who write "Wicked"? It doesn't seem so, but it's true! I am not a regular reader of fantasy, but I could not put "Wicked" down! "Lost" really lived up to it's title--too much meandering, unlikeable characters...read Maguire's other three novels before you turn to this one!
Rating:
Summary: Unfullfilling but still interesting
Review: Lost was a weird and unfulfilling novel. The plot took odd tangents that just didn't seem to fit. But, to Maguire's credit, he tied them all up nicely, but it was still just an odd book. I didn't really like it, but I couldn't stop reading it. It starts out that our heroine, Winnie, is an author and is trying to write a new book. She's headed over to London to stay in her cousin's flat which is their family home. Seems that their ancestor had a haunted night around Christmas and told young Dickens about it and he later immortalized (and ficticionalized) the event into Scrooge and the Christmas hauntings. No problem there, I can follow that. Then, her cousin isn't there but some work is being done at the flat and the workman are spooked because they think there's a ghost. Ghostly things happen, and yeah, there seems to be a ghost. I'm cool there too. Cool and excited. Then things get odd. Winnie's book is being written in another font through out the chapters (which in itself was a bit confusing) about some chick named Wendy who's fascinated with Jack the Ripper. Winnie, as Wendy, decides this ghost must be Ripper's ghost or the ghost of one of his victims. Why? I have no idea! Then she decides it can't be, Winnie decides that is, because a piece of cloth that is found in the space that ghost comes from proves to be older'n that (according to some professional cloth time-teller lady) and a medium tells Winnie that it was a woman's cloth. At this point, I'm rather curious as to where this is all going. What does that 17th century lady have to do with the whole Scrooge thing? Then, due to a lot of twists and turns that would spoil it to tell you, if I haven't spoiled it already, we discover that the ghost is, in fact, a French woman. Winnie gets possessed, then unpossessed and then goes home. Sound like I am unclear? Well, it's because I am! Like I said, I didn't really like it, but I couldn't stop reading and some how or the other it all tied in, I think, but I still came away unsatisfied. Partly because, it was sold on the strength that there was more Scrooge elements to it, than there was. I really liked his Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister : A Novel, it's a good read. Mirror Mirror: A Novel was good, too, though confusing at times. This one, well. . . It was fascinating and gripping, but unsatisfying. Funny thing is, I still want to read his other novels, because his writing style is so unusual.
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