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A review by tanyamariereads
Lost and Wanted by Nell Freudenberger
4.0
I’m a huge science nerd. Which is strange since science was probably my poorest subject while I was in school, but I’ve always been fascinated by science. I suppose it’s the mechanics behind it and seeing how things in our universe work that brings me a thrill. Lost and Wanted definitely goes in-depth with the world of physics all while relating a story of loss to its readers.
Helen, the story’s main character, is a physicist at MIT and a single mom to 7 year old Jack. Helen has just lost her college best friend, Charlie, and tries to deal with grief along with unexpected messages coming from Charlie’s phone postmortem. Helen spends her time trying to recover the phone while recalling memories from her time at Harvard with Charlie.
I’ve read other reviews (as I always do) that said their main gripe with the novel was how Freudenberger was so overly detailed about the world of physics. I’ll admit that sometimes my eyes glazed over reading those sections, but I still loved it all the same. I loved Helen who comes across as a very pragmatic character due to her field of work, but has some trouble applying that to her personal life. I also loved that Charlie, a black woman who could have easily been dismissed as a secondary character to the plot, was given so much life and depth throughout the novel. But overall my favorite thing about this story was how it grapples the question: is there an afterlife? From a scientific standpoint, it can be an easy question to dismiss, but Freudenberger uses physics as a way to suggest there could very well be life beyond death.
Helen, the story’s main character, is a physicist at MIT and a single mom to 7 year old Jack. Helen has just lost her college best friend, Charlie, and tries to deal with grief along with unexpected messages coming from Charlie’s phone postmortem. Helen spends her time trying to recover the phone while recalling memories from her time at Harvard with Charlie.
I’ve read other reviews (as I always do) that said their main gripe with the novel was how Freudenberger was so overly detailed about the world of physics. I’ll admit that sometimes my eyes glazed over reading those sections, but I still loved it all the same. I loved Helen who comes across as a very pragmatic character due to her field of work, but has some trouble applying that to her personal life. I also loved that Charlie, a black woman who could have easily been dismissed as a secondary character to the plot, was given so much life and depth throughout the novel. But overall my favorite thing about this story was how it grapples the question: is there an afterlife? From a scientific standpoint, it can be an easy question to dismiss, but Freudenberger uses physics as a way to suggest there could very well be life beyond death.