Rating: 
Summary: Liked, but wanted more
Review: I've read Wicked and loved it. Expecting the same kind of humor and wild imaginary world in Lost...I was a bit disappointed. Lost is still a good read, but it left me wanting more. The most interesting twist came at the end of the book, leaving me wanted more about .... i won't ruin it for future readers. Some possible story lines were "lost" while others went on to long. I hope this is just the starting point for possibly a sequel or at least a book about other characters brought to life in Lost.
Rating: 
Summary: Truly LOST!!!!!!!!
Review: I had a lot of hope for this book when I started. With the cover art and the description, I expected something more along thelines of a ghost story with literary connections, etc. Well, lets just say this piece of "work" does not know where it is going. The ghost story I was hoping for was incomplete and garbled. And what is the point of the whole Scrooge storyline?
Maguire could have just as easily left Scrooge out of it and it wouldn't effect the plot a whole lot. I guess Maguire just has to have some literary gimmick.
I was left scratching my head at the end of it. I felt a little cheated or perhaps more accurately, mislead. The book isn't horrible but it just isn't worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: The Tale of the Indecisive Plot
Review: If you've noticed any of the other reviews, you probably understand by now: "Lost" is not one of Gregory Maguire's best stories. To be frank, I'm just as disappointed as everyone else. I really WANTED to love this book, but its hard to do so. He seemed to be struggling throughout the book, searching for a plotline... Once you think you've caught hold of what's going on, he shifts it over onto a new path. Eventually it feels almost as if the book has split into two different plot lines occuring simultaniously without any relationship to each other. The book feels as if Maguire should have gone back to the editing board and scrapped a few chapters and written in a few more to make it more coherent. I WILL give Maguire credit for coming up with some interesting plot twists and descriptions, and his quality of writing is terriffic... It just feels as though he needed to examine his plot a little more closely. If you're a Maguire fan you might as well give it a shot, but if you're new to the author go check out "Wicked" and "Confessions" first!
Rating: 
Summary: Lost is a more-than-apt title for this book...
Review: I wanted to love this book. I really did. After reading "Wicked" and "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister," I had huge expectations of Gregory Maguire. This fell far short of those expectations. This piece of work is a trite, hodgepodge mess. Maguire seems incapable of creating a compelling storyline all on his own. His talent lies in words, not new ideas. There was no real plot to speak of and the story had no true ending, either. It left me completely unsatisfied. I can't imagine anyone truly enjoying or understanding the book. He had a few good ideas, but none of them ever seemed to go anywhere or be explained fully enough to be understood. A better novel would be made of a newspaper editorial- don't bother unless you're seriously bored.
Rating:
Summary: Lost - I'm lost!
Review: Gregory Maguire is a very compelling and interesting writer. I loved Wicked and will read it again and again. Ugly was not nearly as captivating. Lost I can't quite get through. I've been reading it for quite some time and it just hasn't enveloped me - dare I say, yet? I'm still reading Lost and if my opinion changes I will write another review. Plea to the Author: Gregory - please go back to your 'Wicked' style!
Rating:
Summary: The Title "Lost" Refers to the Plot
Review: When I read lost I really had no expectation. I was looking for a new book with a new subject and "Lost" captured my interest. I was mistaken to even begin to read this rag. The main character is a middle aged divorced woman who cannot come to grips with her own failure in life and at times escapes into the characters she writes about. This charactor is so poorly writen she is not even interesting enough to make me sick. I have read books with wonderful main characters which you are supposed to hate but this person is just a child in an adult body. The story itself is so poorly writen I think the author did not even know what was going on. Everytime something happens the author decides to draw it out because he needs to think of what will happen next. I cryed at the end, mourning the money I spent and I was going to use it in the bottom of my birds cage but I don't want to torture the bird. Save yourself read an income tax booklet instead. The plot is better and at least you understand the end.
Rating:
Summary: LOST--GREGORY MAGUIRE
Review: "Lost" is a novel about an aspiring author--Winnie Rudge--that travels to London to write a novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Her ancestor is supposedly where Dickens got the idea for Ebenezer Scrooge. But she herself gets caught up in a mystery... While staying at her cousin's house, she hears somthing behind the walls. And where is her cousin? Could the tapping be his dead spirit? Or maybe even the ghosts that haunted Scrooge? But when she tears down the wall, she finds something suprising... This darkly humorous novel had a great plot idea, but with a confusing ending and hard-to-understand prose, it made the book fall apart. Don't read this if you are expecting a fun read or a happy ending. But don't give up on Gregory Maguire--"Confessions of An Ugly Stepsister" and "Wicked" shows he really does have a true talent!
Rating:
Summary: Lost indeed....
Review: I picked this book up as my first one for this writer. I had heard of how wonderful "Wicked" and "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" had been, but because Scrooge and Dickens have always been favorites I was intrigued. Unfortunately I ended up disappointed. The story line itself could have been interesting. But the main character was poorly drawn and unexplainably shallow. We don't find out until later what is motivating her, and by the time that comes around it's hard to really care. She constantly falls into her mental plot line, which is also makes no sense until late in the book, and the jump in and out of that track failed to be a smooth enough transition. Added to that is the constant underline of Jack the Ripper being a possessed individual. An idea that has been floated many times about the murderer and not one that I discount, but not one that really had a place in the story line. I would love to see what he could have done with tightening it up a bit, since I think that the general premise was intriguing and well worth writing about. I would also like to see him tackle the Jack the Ripper idea... but in it's own book, and not tacked on as a side note. I do like his writing style, and will be picking up "Wicked" and look forward to "Mirror, Mirror"... but I don't recommend that this book be the first you read for him.
Rating:
Summary: "Lost" lost its appeal
Review: I have read both of Maguire's other books and found them both particularly original and refreshing. Upon seeing a new publication, I was ecstatic. That, however, did not last. I feel the book was way too deep in how many storylines were going on at once and that subsiquently made the book hard to follow. I also found it to be a bit of a downer and not at all exciting and attention grabbing, as his other books were. All in all, I was extremely disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Lost is Lost
Review: Unfortunately, this novel did not live up to my expectations. I had read "Wicked", which i loved, and then when i heard of all the snippets of other tales and concepts from which Maguire was to have culled his latest idea, i was very eager to read this one. What results is a disjointed, disappointing tale of someone for whom it is hard to really have even the slightest concern. I felt that many of the plot elements were forced, such as the Jack the Ripper, Scrooge, Through the Looking Glass elements, almost as though Maguire was dangling them before the reader to make his uninteresting tale more interesting. I felt that Winnifred Rudge was boring, despite her many problems, and i felt that the introspective snippets, which were to be her new novel, were a brash interruption to what flow Maguire was able to coerce out of his tale, regardless of what they were supposed to tell us about Winnifred's descent into her own malaise. I, like anothe reviewer here, did notice a slight increase of interest in the last parts of the book, but every time a little mystery was solved, i was disappointed with what it was discovered to be, and the close seemed some glossed-over, shallow fairytale happy ending. Technially, i still like Maguire as a writer. He spins words together well and does a good job of painting the mental picture of what is transpiring, but the plot elements of the novel did not live up to the standard of "Wicked". Sadly, if i had read "Lost" first, it would take a lot of convincing to get me to read "Wicked".
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