Review: THE LOST AND THE FOUND by Cat Clarke

The Lost and the Found by Cat Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

SHE WAS LOST...

When six-year-old Laurel Logan was abducted, the only witness was her younger sister, Faith. Faith's childhood was dominated by Laurel's disappearance - from her parents' broken marriage and the constant media attention to dealing with so-called friends who only ever wanted to talk about her sister.

NOW SHE IS FOUND...

Thirteen years later, a young woman is found in the garden of the Logans' old house, disorientated and clutching the teddy bear Laurel was last seen with. Laurel is home at last, safe and sound. Faith always dreamed of getting her sister back, without ever truly believing it would happen. But a disturbing series of events leaves Faith increasingly isolated and paranoid, and before long she begins to wonder if everything that's lost can be found again...

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The Lost and The Found by Cat Clarke is an emotionally-charged, poignant and harrowing tale of one girl’s disappearance and her return.

After 13 years, Faith’s missing sister has come home. Laurel’s endured physical and emotional abuse and this story follows her journey back into “normal” life, but told through the eyes of her younger sister, Faith. Faith’s grown up in the shadow of her missing sister, and now Laurel’s back she’s once again the focus of everyone’s attention.

I’m a massive fan of Clarke’s books and I eagerly picked up The Lost and The Found with high expectations. For most of the book I was thinking this was a 3 or 4 star book. For me it lacked the “heartbeat” of Clarke’s other books—that is until the 80% mark. Then I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough as my suspicions were confirmed about the major twist. This was such a relief to know I was right, and this is definitely one of those books where I believe that working out what the twist is going to be is a good thing. It doesn’t mean the author failed, rather we as readers are rewarded for our close reading skills.

Faith is a great character. She’s real, relatable, and she acted just how I think I would’ve acted had I been in the same situation. Her narrative voice was markedly different to Clarke’s other narrators. We’re less “in the moment” with Faith, and instead there’s a lot of telling and glossing over days or weeks at a time until we’re at the next important event—but, crucially, it never seems like bad telling. It’s just carefully managed.

There’s less action in this book too compared to Clarke’s other titles, and this was something that I found a little slow at times—but it suits the plot. Faith is adjusting to her life now that her missing sister has returned, and this book is very much focussed inwardly on Faith’s feelings and emotions on this (as well as her relationship with her boyfriend and her best friend, and how she’ll manage them now her sister is back).

Because the ending of this book is truly superb—I’d worked out the main twist, but the final page hits you with another twist which I hadn’t seen coming—I want to keep this review as spoiler free as possible as part of the magic of reading this book was in my wondering whether I would be right. I purposefully didn’t read any other reviews of this book in case I stumbled across a spoiler. And I do just want to talk about that final final twist—it is poignant and gut-wrenching and now I’m looking back at much of the rest of the book in a different light. For me, this is the sign of a really good author, and it’s this that makes the book a solid 4 stars.

One of the things I really loved about The Lost and The Found is the relationship between Faith and her boyfriend Thomas. Clarke doesn’t shy away from showing a more realistic relationship that’s rarely found in teen fiction—Faith isn’t always wildly in love with Thomas, as times she believes she doesn’t care much about him at all, and she doubts their future a lot. This really resonated with me, especially the line where Faith wonders whether this is what a loving, true relationship is like and people just don’t publicise the uncertainty, the doubt, or the negative parts.

Spoiler: Faith and Thomas do break up, after multiple betrayals of trust (one of which is revealed later to not actually be a betrayal), and they remain broken up. This is my only sore point about the book as I was hoping for a reconciliation between them to show that yes, relationships are difficult and require work and communication. To me, leaving them broken up risks the idea being portrayed that their relationship was never “true” and that the doubt Faith felt was real. For the anxiety-prone among us, I’d have liked a better ending here. Yet I can see that then remaining broken up also is realistic—rarely do teen couples/first loves stay together.

I also love the family dynamics in this book. Michel, Faith’s father’s new partner, following his divorce to Olivia, was a great character and seeing how Olivia gradually came to accept him as part of the family was great.

The Lost and The Found, in summary, is a great read. A little slow at times but the ending is well worth the wait.

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