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A review by burningupasun
The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna
5.0
Setting/World Building: 5/5
Main Character: 5/5
Other Characters: 5/5
Plot: 5/5
Writing: 4.5/5
Triggering/Issues: 4.5/5 (Some touchy consent stuff for obvious reasons, but it never goes to far.)
AVERAGED TOTAL: 4.8 out of 5, rounded to 5.
I would probably give this book 4.5 stars if I could, but since I can't (and since it's not enough to bump down to 4 stars) it gets 5. Basically, this book just swept me up and carried me off and I could barely stand to put it down until I was done. It was just amazing, it really was. I cried several times, there were points where I was reading it through a film of tears because it was just so emotional.
This book is about a girl who is created to be an Echo of another girl, to replace her if she ever dies. Eva, as she names herself even though she is forbidden, has a life of her own, though. She has a spark and a soul and it is undeniable. She is passionate and stubborn and fierce and smart and she wants so desperately to live. You can't help but connect to her, you can't help but feel her pain every time she feels her life slipping away, or when she's made to leave the life she loves and go live the life of someone else. She just never stops fighting and she is just SO amazing.
I thought that the world created in this was nice, too, the modern world with the twist of the ability to create echoes from nothing (think Frankenstein rather than cloning). I saw some reviewers saying they found it unbelievable that parents would really pay to create copies, aka strangers, to come replace the people they loved... but I think they must not have been parents, or maybe they didn't quite understand how desperate people can do desperate things in an attempt to hold on to the people they loved. There were likely a few unbelievable things about the world (the thing I found weirdest was raising a clone of an Indian girl in England, which obviously affected her speech and such), but overall the story kept me so swept up I didn't care.
All in all a delightful book... although the ending was ambiguous, and apparently a sequel isn't guaranteed, which disappoints me a bit. I need to know what happens to Eva, if she gets her life or not. I NEED to know!!!
Favorite quote:
But maybe that's what the dead do. They stay. They linger. Benign and sweet and painful. They don't need us. They echo all by themselves.
Main Character: 5/5
Other Characters: 5/5
Plot: 5/5
Writing: 4.5/5
Triggering/Issues: 4.5/5 (Some touchy consent stuff for obvious reasons, but it never goes to far.)
AVERAGED TOTAL: 4.8 out of 5, rounded to 5.
I would probably give this book 4.5 stars if I could, but since I can't (and since it's not enough to bump down to 4 stars) it gets 5. Basically, this book just swept me up and carried me off and I could barely stand to put it down until I was done. It was just amazing, it really was. I cried several times, there were points where I was reading it through a film of tears because it was just so emotional.
This book is about a girl who is created to be an Echo of another girl, to replace her if she ever dies. Eva, as she names herself even though she is forbidden, has a life of her own, though. She has a spark and a soul and it is undeniable. She is passionate and stubborn and fierce and smart and she wants so desperately to live. You can't help but connect to her, you can't help but feel her pain every time she feels her life slipping away, or when she's made to leave the life she loves and go live the life of someone else. She just never stops fighting and she is just SO amazing.
I thought that the world created in this was nice, too, the modern world with the twist of the ability to create echoes from nothing (think Frankenstein rather than cloning). I saw some reviewers saying they found it unbelievable that parents would really pay to create copies, aka strangers, to come replace the people they loved... but I think they must not have been parents, or maybe they didn't quite understand how desperate people can do desperate things in an attempt to hold on to the people they loved. There were likely a few unbelievable things about the world (the thing I found weirdest was raising a clone of an Indian girl in England, which obviously affected her speech and such), but overall the story kept me so swept up I didn't care.
All in all a delightful book... although the ending was ambiguous, and apparently a sequel isn't guaranteed, which disappoints me a bit. I need to know what happens to Eva, if she gets her life or not. I NEED to know!!!
Favorite quote:
But maybe that's what the dead do. They stay. They linger. Benign and sweet and painful. They don't need us. They echo all by themselves.