Review: Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

THE STORY

As a pastor's kid, it's hard not to buy into the idea of the perfect family, a loving God, and amazing grace. But lately, Sam has a lot of reasons to doubt. Her mother lands in rehab after a DUI, and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. When a young girl in her small town goes missing, the local tragedy overlaps with Sam's personal one, and the already worn thread of faith holding her together begins to unravel. In her third novel, acclaimed author Sara Zarr examines the coexistence of affliction and hope, and what happens when everything you thought you believed—about God, your family, and yourself—is transformed.

MY THOUGHTS

The Basics

If I  have one goal as a writer it will be to one day write a contemporary novel. As much as I'm a sci-f/fantasy/dystopian girl, I am finding that it's the contemporary novels which keep me glued to the page. Once Was Lost was no exception. Sam had a really enjoyable and very genuine voice, as did most of the characters. It wasn't difficult to immerse myself in the Sam's world and get caught up in the mystery/kidnapping. Zarr dealt with the competing threads of Sam's life seamlessly, showing the anguish Sam felt over the missing person's search in parallel to  her personal family tragedy. I stayed up late reading this one, something I haven't done in a long time.

Symbolism Free Zone

I don't get it. I had to read about it in a review by Jenny and from other Goodreads reviews. That's not saying that the symbolism wasn't well done. I am just very dense when it comes to that sort of thing. Now that I look back on the events, it seems pretty obvious.

Is Frustration Ever Good?

Everybody who sticks around long enough on my blog (is a legend!) will know that I'm a character driven reader. It's so hard to pin down what it is about characters that makes them especially relatable. Sometimes I like them tough. Other times I like them funny or playful. Sam was downright frustrating at times. In many of the situations she faced, I found myself literally screaming at her to open her mouth and let it all out. Instead she kept everything bottled up inside and got a little sadder each day. And yet there's a tiny part of me which respected her ability to let things slide. Goodness knows I would have whipped out a can of whoop ass on her dad a long time ago. I guess what I'm saying is that I liked Sam because she's not at all like I am. She has the ability to understand what other people may be going through and thinks things through before she says anything. As much as it frustrated me that she didn't go postal, I have to agree it wasn't in her character.

The Religion Thing
I wasn't sure if I should talk about the religion thing but then I figured, hey, this is MY blog. Even though there's not overly a lot of blatant religious teaching in this book, I still err on the side of "it's a religious book." There's a lot of soul searching and I personally felt that there was a tendency to forgive and forget and let's move on. From what I can see, Sam and her family don't really deal with their issues so much as wait for them to blow over. Maybe the category of this book as YA precludes it from going into too much depth, though I suspect it's really just a religion thing. That kind of disappointed me because I would have loved to see the issues being dealt with on some level. everyone just seemed to want to keep things 'nice.' Maybe it's just me. On the whole, I still enjoyed the book and am looking forward to reading more of Zarr's work. 

 THE RATING

4/5