A review by debs4jc
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn

2.0

This book kind of confused me. At first I thought it was a story about a girl who likes to play detective. Sure she had problems since her dad died but her efforts to hone her investigative skill while toting her stuffed monkey around seemed kind of cute. Until the story suddenly did a fast forward in time and started following the employees of a mall called Green Oaks. One of the security guards seems to see a lost little girl on the security monitors. One of the employees finds a stuffed monkey in the staff corridors. It turns out the little girl who liked to play detective, Kate Meany, suddenly disappeared years ago. The book then turns into an examination of how her disappearance ties in with the Green Oaks mall and the sad lives of the people who work and shop there. Lots of sad, bizarre, and disturbing scenes made this a less than enjoyable read for me. It also didn't seem to flow well in audio form, I don't know if the print book gives you more clues but the sudden shifts in time and narrator were hard to follow in audio. The British accent of the narrator did help establish the setting, and the central mystery kept me listening to the sad ending. If you don't mind a moody tale full of detailed examinations into the futility of people's lives, give this one a try.