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shogins's review against another edition
3.0
I liked the writing a lot, but the world building didn't coalesce. I didn't understand Matthew or Adrian, their motivations, or desires, how powerful the Loom was, why it had those rules, why people didn't fight it, etc etc etc. I liked Eva and her energy and her spirit and her character arc was reasonable, but I just struggled with almost all of the characters around her.
moniqueeditrix's review against another edition
5.0
This was the most gut-wrenching, heart-twisting book I have read in a while.
greymalkin's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A little uneven in places, especially toward the end. World was interesting but the metaplot needed more consistency to really hang together. I found the relationships believable, which helped sell some of the more unbelievable plot coincidences.
My major complaint is the ending. It felt unearned and not as satisfying as other moments in the book.
jcox3814's review against another edition
3.0
I will save the summary of the plot as it is right up at the top of the page next to the cover. I found The Lost Girl very well written, the emotions came across strong and for the most part true. I enjoyed the play of emotions that both girls have and how helpless they feel with no real control over their own life and autonomy.
I like that the characters are not black and white, we have no strong feel for why several of the adults do what they do nor which side they will finally fall on. Several have made choices that they are struggling to live with and others know their place and do their best in a less than perfect situation.
I struggled with the lifestyle of the teenagers in Inda. I could not figure out why place the story in India and then have the lifestyle and talk so Americanized that the reader forgets that it is India. This made it difficult to stay in the story at times.
I also felt that the foreshadowing of a love triangle was unnecessary (I can't be the only one tired of these).
I like that the characters are not black and white, we have no strong feel for why several of the adults do what they do nor which side they will finally fall on. Several have made choices that they are struggling to live with and others know their place and do their best in a less than perfect situation.
I struggled with the lifestyle of the teenagers in Inda. I could not figure out why place the story in India and then have the lifestyle and talk so Americanized that the reader forgets that it is India. This made it difficult to stay in the story at times.
I also felt that the foreshadowing of a love triangle was unnecessary (I can't be the only one tired of these).
gainzbybrownie's review against another edition
2.0
Naah, I couldn't complete this book. The storyline is boring and the characters are annoying.
Disappointed? No.
Disappointed? No.
paperiot's review against another edition
3.0
(As reviewed on Paper Riot.)
The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna is, in many ways, an exceptional book. The writing is exceptionally beautiful. Every character is exceptionally well-written. The concept is exceptionally unique. But while all of these aspects impressed me, I don't think that this book will be particularly memorable to me in the future. Especially in the third part, I felt like there was something missing. Nevertheless, this book is very different and beautiful in it's own way, and I would definitely recommend it. Apparently I have a lot of things to say about why this book is wonderful, so let's get to that part.
My favorite thing, along with the concept, would have to be the characters. Eva was a character I could easily understand and one that felt very real to me. She spends her life trying to copy another girl, but Eva is not as calm as Amarra. She was not "just an echo" either. I really liked being inside her head. My favorite side character would have to be Lekha. Or Nikhil. Or Sasha. Or... (just kidding). I think you can tell how good a book is by how well-written the side characters are, and in this case, they were really good. I would have liked to see Ray and Sean developed better, and maybe Eva's friendship with Lekha as well. But overall, this was a part of the story that I really enjoyed.
And then there is the concept, which was different and very detailed. In The Lost Girl, people are afraid to lose their loved ones, and pay for echoes to be made. An echo, like Eva, is a copy of another person, ready to take over when that person dies. A bit strange, like Frankenstein, on which it was based, and a bit morbid, with the Weavers stitching together bodies. The Lost Girl makes you wonder about what it means to be alive, and whether cheating death is the right choice (and if it's really our choice to make). From the perspective of an endearing protagonist, Mandanna addresses these questions in the calm way with which she writes, and this makes the impact even bigger.
Sangu Mandanna has a way with words. Her prose is enchanting in a quiet way. There are no prominent metaphors or excessive words, and yet this book felt a bit like poetry. But it was not just the writing that was quietly beautiful: the whole story, including dialogue and action scenes, had a calm feel to it. So while the last part of this book didn't impress me as much as the rest of the story and there was just something that didn't feel quite right to me, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was moved by Eva's journey and this book definitely made an impression on me. I found the overall tone of this story to be quite bittersweet and maybe this is why I'm undecided about my feelings. But I do think that this book is one of a kind.
The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna is, in many ways, an exceptional book. The writing is exceptionally beautiful. Every character is exceptionally well-written. The concept is exceptionally unique. But while all of these aspects impressed me, I don't think that this book will be particularly memorable to me in the future. Especially in the third part, I felt like there was something missing. Nevertheless, this book is very different and beautiful in it's own way, and I would definitely recommend it. Apparently I have a lot of things to say about why this book is wonderful, so let's get to that part.
My favorite thing, along with the concept, would have to be the characters. Eva was a character I could easily understand and one that felt very real to me. She spends her life trying to copy another girl, but Eva is not as calm as Amarra. She was not "just an echo" either. I really liked being inside her head. My favorite side character would have to be Lekha. Or Nikhil. Or Sasha. Or... (just kidding). I think you can tell how good a book is by how well-written the side characters are, and in this case, they were really good. I would have liked to see Ray and Sean developed better, and maybe Eva's friendship with Lekha as well. But overall, this was a part of the story that I really enjoyed.
And then there is the concept, which was different and very detailed. In The Lost Girl, people are afraid to lose their loved ones, and pay for echoes to be made. An echo, like Eva, is a copy of another person, ready to take over when that person dies. A bit strange, like Frankenstein, on which it was based, and a bit morbid, with the Weavers stitching together bodies. The Lost Girl makes you wonder about what it means to be alive, and whether cheating death is the right choice (and if it's really our choice to make). From the perspective of an endearing protagonist, Mandanna addresses these questions in the calm way with which she writes, and this makes the impact even bigger.
Sangu Mandanna has a way with words. Her prose is enchanting in a quiet way. There are no prominent metaphors or excessive words, and yet this book felt a bit like poetry. But it was not just the writing that was quietly beautiful: the whole story, including dialogue and action scenes, had a calm feel to it. So while the last part of this book didn't impress me as much as the rest of the story and there was just something that didn't feel quite right to me, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was moved by Eva's journey and this book definitely made an impression on me. I found the overall tone of this story to be quite bittersweet and maybe this is why I'm undecided about my feelings. But I do think that this book is one of a kind.
srogan88's review against another edition
4.0
Weird. I read dystopian and liked it enough that I'd read the sequel if there were one. Is there one? 4.5*
It turns out I can handle sci-fi and dystopian when the world-builder only shifts an element or two. I found the concept of living as an engineered twin, your entire purpose to replace the original should something happen to them, completely fascinating. And then, when it happened, to see how it actually worked, how it didn't, how everyone involved felt about it.
There's no sequel to this, but I'd be completely open to reading it if it existed. There were enough openings left that it could happen. I don't think I've ever said that before about anything sci-fi or dystopian.
It turns out I can handle sci-fi and dystopian when the world-builder only shifts an element or two. I found the concept of living as an engineered twin, your entire purpose to replace the original should something happen to them, completely fascinating. And then, when it happened, to see how it actually worked, how it didn't, how everyone involved felt about it.
There's no sequel to this, but I'd be completely open to reading it if it existed. There were enough openings left that it could happen. I don't think I've ever said that before about anything sci-fi or dystopian.
ncrabb's review against another edition
4.0
There are monsters among us. They are made monstrous by virtue of their differences from us. They believe differently from us; therefore, they are monsters. They live with disabilities you and I can't comprehen; they are monstrously different--arguably almost inhuman by virtue of their differences. Ah, but wait! Do they not have feelings not unlike ours? What if within them lived a spirit saturated with the divine spark of its creator? Where then is the monster?
For 16 years, Eva has grown up in a sheltered almost cloistered environment in England. She has a mark at the back of her neck that she must always hide on those rare times when she is in public. She was created by scientists called "weavers" who create children who serve as backups for other children conventionally born. If one of these conventionally born children dies, the backup child, who has literally spent its lifetime studying every nuance of the conventionally born child's life, can become a living extension of the dead child, thereby assuaging the grief of the parents who have sustained a loss and who have paid the weavers to create this backup child.
Eva didn't name herself until she was 16, and she took the name after an elephant she saw on a magical rare day when one of her minders took her to the zoo. It was technically illegal for her to have any name at all other than the name of the conventionally born girl whose life she had to so carefully study and emulate however possible.
When the conventionally born girl whom Eva has closely observed is killed in an accident, Eva must travel to India to become the living daughter replacement for the one so recently and brutally killed.
But Eva has always struggled under the constraints of her life as an echo. She and her kind are illegal, and there are bounty hunters who would take her life in an instant if her guardians would allow it. Indeed, it is in the presence of these guardians in England where Eva learns to love others and to be loved. To the guardians, she is not an echo. She is a girl with a name and unique personality traits that the weavers don't have the power to obliterate. There is nothing monstrous or alien about her.
Life in India becomes more than a little problematic for Eva. She makes an understandable mistake that brings her fragilely constructed life to the verge of collapse, and now Eva must find the freedom to be Eva, not a lifelong understudy. Indeed, her life depends on it.
This book does a grand job of exploring what humanity means. Mandanna writes well, and she fearlessly explores the ways we all build walls to keep out those who don't see the world as we do. I even found myself cheering for the romantic piece here between Eva and the most youthful of her guardians. It could perhaps have been a bit better developed, but it in no way detracts from the book.
Your heart truly goes out to Eva who never gets to simply live her life as a girl. She is busy constantly viewing videos of her "other." At one point, despite her feelings to the contrary, Eva is forced to get a snake tattoo because her "other," Amara, got one half a world away.
I came away from the book resolved to do better at merely accepting those around me and focus less on differences that create monstrous unnecessary gaps between me and those around me.
For those who follow me here and have concerns about book content, be advised that there is almost no profanity here; and while there's some teenage kiss-and-cuddle, there are no graphic sexual descriptions.
This is a young-adult title that can easily cross age boundaries and remind us all that we are all more alike and less freakish and monstrous than we may think.
For 16 years, Eva has grown up in a sheltered almost cloistered environment in England. She has a mark at the back of her neck that she must always hide on those rare times when she is in public. She was created by scientists called "weavers" who create children who serve as backups for other children conventionally born. If one of these conventionally born children dies, the backup child, who has literally spent its lifetime studying every nuance of the conventionally born child's life, can become a living extension of the dead child, thereby assuaging the grief of the parents who have sustained a loss and who have paid the weavers to create this backup child.
Eva didn't name herself until she was 16, and she took the name after an elephant she saw on a magical rare day when one of her minders took her to the zoo. It was technically illegal for her to have any name at all other than the name of the conventionally born girl whose life she had to so carefully study and emulate however possible.
When the conventionally born girl whom Eva has closely observed is killed in an accident, Eva must travel to India to become the living daughter replacement for the one so recently and brutally killed.
But Eva has always struggled under the constraints of her life as an echo. She and her kind are illegal, and there are bounty hunters who would take her life in an instant if her guardians would allow it. Indeed, it is in the presence of these guardians in England where Eva learns to love others and to be loved. To the guardians, she is not an echo. She is a girl with a name and unique personality traits that the weavers don't have the power to obliterate. There is nothing monstrous or alien about her.
Life in India becomes more than a little problematic for Eva. She makes an understandable mistake that brings her fragilely constructed life to the verge of collapse, and now Eva must find the freedom to be Eva, not a lifelong understudy. Indeed, her life depends on it.
This book does a grand job of exploring what humanity means. Mandanna writes well, and she fearlessly explores the ways we all build walls to keep out those who don't see the world as we do. I even found myself cheering for the romantic piece here between Eva and the most youthful of her guardians. It could perhaps have been a bit better developed, but it in no way detracts from the book.
Your heart truly goes out to Eva who never gets to simply live her life as a girl. She is busy constantly viewing videos of her "other." At one point, despite her feelings to the contrary, Eva is forced to get a snake tattoo because her "other," Amara, got one half a world away.
I came away from the book resolved to do better at merely accepting those around me and focus less on differences that create monstrous unnecessary gaps between me and those around me.
For those who follow me here and have concerns about book content, be advised that there is almost no profanity here; and while there's some teenage kiss-and-cuddle, there are no graphic sexual descriptions.
This is a young-adult title that can easily cross age boundaries and remind us all that we are all more alike and less freakish and monstrous than we may think.
sr_toliver's review against another edition
4.0
Eva is like Frankenstein's monster, stitched and created. She is an echo, a clone who is created at the request of a family (called familiars) who couldn't bear to lose any one of their children. In this society, Weavers create the Echoes and have them raised by Guardians in lands far away from the person they are supposed to copy. But, even though they are raised away from their human, they must still learn to act, think, speak, write, love, and present the way their human does. They read weekly journals; they are required to obtain any superficial marks (tattoos, but not painful accidents like dog bites); they are supposed to learn all that they can about the person they must be in the event that the human dies unexpectedly. They are supposed to assume the human's role so well that friends and family members would never know that the original had been replaced.
Eva is raised to mirror Amarra, but even though she knows what she is supposed to do, she constantly rebels against a system telling her who to be. In fact, she is supposed to share a name with her human, but instead she chose to be called Eva, clearly separating herself from the person she is supposed to be like. Throughout the novel, she defies laws that could get her 'unstitched' (since she was 'stitched' together, the Weavers can undo her existence fairly easily). She understands the consequences, but the search for her identity is much more important than their laws. But, what price will she pay to truly gain the freedom to define who she is and who she wants to be?
What I loved about the novel was the character development. There isn't a lot of action in the story to have anyone on the edge of their seats, but there is an element of thoughtfulness to the approach Mandanna took in ensuring that the reader sees nuances to character identity. For example, I never got a chance to 'meet' Amarra in the story, but through her actions, through the way other character's reacted to her passing, and through the way her family reacted to Eva told me a lot about her.
This book was clearly an #ownvoices text. Mandanna pulls from her life experiences to create the world seen in the novel. For instance, Mandanna currently lives in Norwich and was raised in Bangalore. She seemed to draw from these settings to create the backdrop for the story that was authentic and not superficial. In fact, the setting was a character in a way. The story was mostly set in London and Bangalore (officially known as Bengaluru), and these were not just minute details that were mentioned and then left alone to discuss the story. These two places were greatly important, providing a background that gave the story intense richness and cultural nuance.
Diversity Elements
Women are prominently featured in the text - the protagonist, her main Guardian, one of the Weavers, etc. - but they are all different, not always falling into typical gender norms
Eva, Mina Ma, Amarra and Amarra's family (Alisha, Neil, Nikhil, and Sasha) are of Indian decent
Eva is raised to mirror Amarra, but even though she knows what she is supposed to do, she constantly rebels against a system telling her who to be. In fact, she is supposed to share a name with her human, but instead she chose to be called Eva, clearly separating herself from the person she is supposed to be like. Throughout the novel, she defies laws that could get her 'unstitched' (since she was 'stitched' together, the Weavers can undo her existence fairly easily). She understands the consequences, but the search for her identity is much more important than their laws. But, what price will she pay to truly gain the freedom to define who she is and who she wants to be?
What I loved about the novel was the character development. There isn't a lot of action in the story to have anyone on the edge of their seats, but there is an element of thoughtfulness to the approach Mandanna took in ensuring that the reader sees nuances to character identity. For example, I never got a chance to 'meet' Amarra in the story, but through her actions, through the way other character's reacted to her passing, and through the way her family reacted to Eva told me a lot about her.
This book was clearly an #ownvoices text. Mandanna pulls from her life experiences to create the world seen in the novel. For instance, Mandanna currently lives in Norwich and was raised in Bangalore. She seemed to draw from these settings to create the backdrop for the story that was authentic and not superficial. In fact, the setting was a character in a way. The story was mostly set in London and Bangalore (officially known as Bengaluru), and these were not just minute details that were mentioned and then left alone to discuss the story. These two places were greatly important, providing a background that gave the story intense richness and cultural nuance.
Diversity Elements
Women are prominently featured in the text - the protagonist, her main Guardian, one of the Weavers, etc. - but they are all different, not always falling into typical gender norms
Eva, Mina Ma, Amarra and Amarra's family (Alisha, Neil, Nikhil, and Sasha) are of Indian decent
lib_07's review against another edition
4.0
I have to admit that I didn't think I was going to like this. It took a while for me to get into it, but once I did, it was good. It was such an interesting plot and you can't help but feel for Eva. She is stuck between two worlds and wanting to live her life, but knowing she will always be living someone else's. I would definitely recommend this to someone who likes a love story with some angst and a sci-twist.