Rating: 
Summary: Don't even bother with this one.
Review: I completely hated this book. It took forever for the author to finally decide what he was talking about. It should have been titled "A Day in the Life of the Fletcher Family". This book started really good and then just went downhill. If they put the first five chapters and the last three chapters together, and left out the middle, this would have been a wonderful book.
Rating: 
Summary: A disturbing and real life look at evil and family.
Review: I really enjoyed this book, I had chanced upon Card's book "The Treasurebox" and wanted the to see if his other titles were equally entertaining. This one was. I felt like the book was a bit repetitious in plot at some points but Card does a beautiful job of making you take this family into your heart and feel every stress, pain, and joy that they feel. The end was vivid enought that I couldn't get it out of my head for days. Give this book a try I really enjoyed it!
Rating:
Summary: I can't believe anyone could give this book FIVE stars??
Review: Far too many pages to tell far too little of a story.First, I will admit that I thought the ending was fascinating and it had some heart so I did get a lump in my throat; however, the book was broken down into several different sub plots which don't deal with the lost boys at all. These subplots were extraordinarily boring and I found myself getting angry with the book for not spending more time on the son Stevie and the mysterious phantom game and friends. The story would slightly hit on the imaginary friends of Stevie then the characters would forget and choose not to pursue the issue for 50 pages when it would again only briefly touch the subject. Suddenly in the second to last chapter, the book finally crams the entire lost boys story in. When I was finished, I thought about Eight Bits Inc., Mrs. Jones, Dolores LeSueur, and Lee Weeks then said, What the heck were those characters even for? All of which were spoken of far too often throughout the story but had absolutely no impact on the outcome of the story. Their subplots were scrapped a third of the way through the book and never came back into play or spoken of again. These characters should have never existed in any detail. As I mentioned above, the story should have been a lot shorter. Whew...
Rating: 
Summary: Why must a short story become a novel?
Review: This story was first written as a short story, and it was truly meant to be one. Because OSC is a good writer, he pulls of hundreds of pages of unnecessary plot. The first time you read it, you don't know where it's going so it can be quite enjoyable. If you read it a second time, you'll notice how repetitious each red herring is (every single thing Step does he has to talk to his wife about later, retelling the reader everything they already know). The plot gets about as busy as a family's life can be in reality, but who wants to read about everything that goes on in a family? Why not spend the time it takes to read this book with your own family? The book's characters are easy to relate to, but they themselves are not very 3 dimensional. They have just enough personality to let the reader project themselves into the story. The child, Stevie, is NOT the main character, regardless of what the book would have you think. Step is. It's about his fight against all the evils of the outside world that threaten his family. There is something disturbing that I noticed only after a second read: all the major "evil" characters are non-Mormon. There is only one Mormon character that has problems, and she is very minor to the plot. Makes me wonder how OSC sees non-Mormons. His bad guys are rather stereotyped. Example: the shrink. If you cannot tell that she is a stereotype, you may be experiencing the same bias he is. Despite flaws, the writing is decent and the ending is a tear-jerker.
Rating: 
Summary: Three reasons why Lost Boys is powerful -- and wonderful
Review: On my list of favorite novels -- which includes To Kill A Mockingbird, The World According to Garp, and Lonesome Dove -- Lost Boys keeps rising right to the top. Three reasons why this is an incredible, powerful, captivating book: 1. First, you'll be captured by the relevance of the characters and situations. Step Fletcher and his wife and kids are the people who live next door to you. Or if they don't, you wish they did. They're smart, principled, and good-hearted. They face the same struggles you face: Step's job is a grind (but he has to stick with it), their kids act like kids, they have too much to do, the teacher at school is kind of a headcase, they have friends and neighbors who are sometimes weird (and sometimes scary)... 2. And then, in the midst of this typical suburban life, elements of another world slip in: Their son communes with the lost sons of other families. Their house comes alive with insect inhabitants that respond sharply to human tragedy, and they have visitors who no longer belong to our earthly realm... 3. Then the book ends -- and the ending knocks you down. First it breaks your heart; then, on the last page, it gives you hope: The Flethers, with a handicapped son, with a new job, with great sadness, will get by. Their lost boy will be waiting for them, standing at the door to the next world, to welcome them home. Lost Boys is not science fiction. It's funny and sad and very affirming. When I finished it, as the father of three children myself, I sat behind a locked door and cried. Lost Boys is the best novel I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply, deeply disturbing...
Review: Orson Scott Card writes in a way that disturbs me so much, especially with what he puts the children in the book through. Ender killed some other boy when he was just 5. We got to witness Qing Jao repeditively smash her head against a wall when she was just a child. While what he puts the children through in Lost Boys is not nearly so painfully distressing (until the end) it has lots of terribly disturbing moments injected into what I thought was a soap opera type thing. I'm glad in a way that it wasn't. It was really gripping and really involving and some bits made me sit bolt upright in bed. Once I got to the end I was feeling firstly, very disturbed. The ending is one of the most suprising and shocking I have ever read. After you calm down you relise that over half the story was pointless subplots but hey, they were ENTERTAINING subplots and sometimes the charecters react oddly but maybe thats just how OSC wanted it written. But over all it is a great book if you don't mind losing sleep!
Rating:
Summary: Tragedy upon good v.s. evil
Review: I decided to read this book because I enjoyed "Ender's Game" very much. "Lost Boys" is somewhat different from "Ender's Game," yet similar in some ways. This story is very shocking and I cried near the end of the story, but I still liked the way Card always make kids heroes. This story portrays a clear contrast between good and evil: Stevie, who is described like a saint and serial murderer, the pure evil. Stevie's suffering through his life and his tragic death to save others are a clear allusion to the Bible. There are many sinister foreshadowing throughout the story which made me shiver and wish that would not happen. Although Stevie is the key protagonist, the story is told in his parents points of view. This makes readers worry about Stevie who seems to be crazy and was forced to gone through many cruel, unjust, and unforgivable experience unnoticed. Many times I was urged to get in the book and give him a helping hand because everything just seems so unfair. The book contains some passages that made me uncomfortable, but it is still worth reading. Card always reminds us that children are good and strong.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful and heart-wrenching, BUT...
Review: The novel is based on a much shorter work, also called "Lost Boys" by Card. In the short story, Card centers the action around members of his own family. I am assuming that the Fletchers in the novel version are also loosely based on Card's own family (the fact that they are devoted Mormons being a key giveaway). It is no wonder that the family members seem so fleshed out and detailed. I must first say that there isn't as much "plot" in this story as much as it follows the trials and tribulations of a struggling family. And believe me, there are alot of struggles. Money is tight, there's a baby on the way, the older son has social problems at school, and dad is stuck in a job he hates. Throw in a zealot spiritualist out to convert their children, a pedophile co-worker, a serial child-killer, and a number of not-so-nice neighbors, and you've got enough bad things happening to the Fletchers that could fill up an entire season of "Party of Five." However, meandering though the story is, I found myself really caring for this family and what happened to them. (Which is more than I can say for "Party of Five") Card really draws you in, and by the tear-wrenching climax I felt the Fletcher's loss as if it were my own.
Rating:
Summary: Entertainment
Review: To answer people's questions, the point of this book, like all books, was to entertain. The actual plot was done in the first and last chapters, and the rest was all filler. I still couldn't put it down though. I thought the characters were believable, and the book maintained my interest through out.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably bad
Review: If you're thinking about reading this book because you love Orson Scott Card's science fiction stories you can stop right now. The other-worldly computer game is a very, very minor part of the book. If you're thinking about reading this book because you love the moral and idealogical dilemmas Orson Scott Card weaves into his novels, you can stop right now. There are no ambiguities to contemplate here: the Fletchers are good and practically everyone else is evil. I can't believe the same person who wrote this also wrote "Pastwatch".
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