I’ve been a fan of Cat Clarke for a while, so when I received The Lost and The Found in the mail, I was overjoyed. Obviously when you dive into a book whose author has written amazing books before, you have high expectations. Cat Clarke’s writing is perfect for YA.
She somehow manages perfectly to capture the thoughts and feelings of a teenager, without actually being a teenager herself. She writes so well that if the protagonist hates a character, you start to hate a character. With this, it makes it surprising when the character does something that you wouldn’t do, but that’s what makes the book intriguing.
The characters were the main focus of the entire book. The main character, Faith, is brilliant. The whole way through the book, Faith would say or do something and I would have to stop myself from nodding furiously, or yelling ‘Yessss!’. She’s interesting, and you never know what she’s going to do next. Faith isn’t perfect, so there are some moments when she does something crazy that you wouldn’t even dream of doing, but that makes her seem like a person, rather than 100% fictional and made up.
My personal favourite character was Michel. At the beginning of the book, I was convinced he was her brother, only to be told otherwise later on. Michel is the kind of person everyone needs in their life. Someone who asks whether their friend is okay even if they know EXACTLY the problem and why it’s bothering them.
Laurel was a whole other story. I always love a good book where there is a certain character everyone else loves, but you despise. I felt that Laurel was one of those characters I just love to hate. Laurel is one of the most developed characters I’ve read about, and you never know what to expect from her, whether she’ll be angry or happy about something. She’s unpredictable in an emotional way, rather than Faith, who’s unpredictable in a physical way.
There wasn’t a moment when I wasn’t full of suspense while reading this book. There was the kind of build-up where you knew something was going to happen, but you didn’t know what or when, so you just had to keep reading to find out.
The beginning was great, because unlike some books, you just jumped straight into the action, without long character introductions. Whereas in some books you have many tiny plot twists, where you’re just like ‘oh gosh’, this book amazingly had a massive build up to one of the most out-of-this-world and crazy and shocking plot twists in the whole of human history.
I promise I’m not being dramatic. What also shocked me in this book was the romance, or should I say, the lack of it. This is definitely not a contemporary. I love a good romance, but I also love how Cat Clarke knew there wasn’t enough room for romance in the story, although she knew that she had to include a tiny problem to do with the romantic side of Faith.
I do read a lot of YA, but I have to say I’m always excited to see Cat Clarke in the bookshops I go to, because I can imagine other people reading her books and enjoying them just as much as me.
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Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
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