Lost audiobook

I wrote this review a couple of years ago over at amazon.com. I was a little snarky back then (ha!), but I still feel the same way:I couldn't put this book down. Found myself . . . "Lost" in it! There are lots of kinds of people in the world and from the reviews here it appears that they fall into two categories: those who would like the wheel to be reinvented consistently every time, and those who enjoy variety and evolution. If you wanted this book to be Wicked all over again, you're in luck, books are reusable. If you go back to the first page you can read it . . . again! I've read Wicked three times!This author is on a journey. He has taken a stab at using is own story line in this book rather than relying on someone else's. I have to say that Wicked was one of the best books I've every read, and no, this is not Wicked, but it was a damned good read. It was very literally apparent that he took a lot of influence and ideas from A Christmas Carol, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, etc. But there are some more literary influences at work here that he did not spell out. I was reminded of "The Yellow Wall Paper", "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall", "Pedro Paramo" and some other experimental styles of writing.If you cannot tolerate constant stream of thought style literature this is not for you. If you need the structure of small chapters, punctuation, clear dialog, the distinction between voices, etc this book is not for you. Some people like to cozy up and read a good book, others enjoy the intellectual challenge of digesting literature. The thing about Maguire is that he demonstrated his ability to write and combine pulp fiction and literature when he wrote Wicked. All the pulp fiction, Wicked fans that jumped aboard the Maguire band wagon are disappointed because they don't want to have to think too hard, they just want to sit back and enjoy. I'm really not trying to pass judgment here; just figure out what you want out of your reading experience before you buy. The negative reviews you see here are largely from people who couldn't figure out how to re-read Wicked!

"Lost" differs from its "Wicked" "Stepsister" cousins in that it does not (as closely) follow a traditional fairytale turned on its head. Echoing back to "Christmas Carol" and "Alice in Wonderland," it is not a straight rendition of either, but its own tale.Much of the book is spent wondering what really has occurred, as the line between reality and illusion are blurred. The ending, though, is satisfying. Worth the read.

A lot of people seem to have read Wicked, tried Lost and been terribly disappointed. I found the book actually MORE satisfying than Wicked. I hope that you will give me a chance to sell you on Lost because I think that you will enjoy it if you give it an honest chance. I read the book in the space of a two day business trip, and purposely begged off of social stuff and went to the airport four hours early so I could sit uninterrupted and read it. I think one of the benefits of Wicked that made others prefer it, is that it takes place in a world we are all familiar with. We have a world already in our heads, a world that Maguire then manipulates and redraws in novel and jarring ways. In Lost, however, we are presented something much more rewarding, at least for me -- a ghost story of sorts in the present day. It is the real world, but viewed through a unique and interesting lens. Maguire presents us with just as complex and ambivalent a heroine here as in Wicked. There are two narrative voices -- that of Winnie, and that of Winnie's character, Wendy, in the novel that Winnie is trying to write. As we all know, all characters in all works of fiction are in some way distillations of the author and friends and life. Plot points and locations are often taken from real life and manipulated to fit the story, and we learn most important information about Winnie's real life and real wounds through her attempt at a novel. It is a very simple but very effective technique, especially because Maguire's book is also a meditation on the way we construct narratives from our lives, both about ourselves and our place in the world, and about ghosts and the nature of haunting in our lives. We journey with Winnie from contemplating the usual canned ideas of ghosts-- that ghosts with unfinished business are haunting the world, unable to move on to the next world, lost in this one. And we move to a much deeper understanding of ghosts, and of Winnie. In Lost, there is unfinished business, there is haunting. And not just by ghosts.

LOST seems to be the runt in Maguire's litter of post-modern fantasy novels and it seems to be in part because it couldn't live up to the fanfare of WICKED and CONFESSIONS OF AN UGLY STEPSISTER, its immediate and deservedly lauded predecessors. Here, for the first time, Maguire tries to create a wholly original novel as opposed to one centered around re-interpreting a classic tale by another author. Though Dickens and Jack the Ripper echo in the text, along with some sly references to Stephen Sondhiem, the book is mostly about an aging single woman who desperately wants a child coming to terms with the fact that the man she loves doesn't love her back and that mother hood may be something she will only ever experience vicariously. When her tortured soul connects with a medieval ghost the book takes interesting twists and turns, presenting us with some wonderful characters and creepy moments. Wendy, the main character, is interesting enough to follow despite being a wet blanket and there is an unexpectedly subtle ending that leaves you feeling satisfied despite its vague ambiguity as to if Wendy will ever achieve her happy ending. Truly, an under-praised novel, worth reading by fans of Maguire and lovers of ghost stories in general.

My review is specifically for the audiobook.I have this book as a printed edition; it's even signed by the author. It's a lovely, amazing story, and like so many of Maguire's novels, not anything I would have expected.Lost is the story of Winnifred Rudge, a children's novelist working a novel for adult readers. Something is clearly wrong with her; the novel opens with her attending an information meeting about international adoption--and she gets kicked out when the staff recognize her name and occupation. The next day, she leaves for London, where she plans to research her novel about Wendy Pritzke, a woman obsessed with Jack the Ripper. On arrival, Winnie learns that her host, her cousin John Connister, is strangely absent. He's having renovations done on his apartment, and the workers don't even know where he's gone.Winnie is concerned--especially when all of John's friends refuse to answer her questions. The situation in the apartment is odd; the workers have removed part of the pantry wall, and now they can hear strange noises behind the wall . . .The first half of the novel is a slow buildup of tension involving the wall and the noises. Winnie makes friends easily, but she constantly drives them away from her as well. She's somehow separated from her life, and she constantly asks herself "how would Wendy Pritzke respond to this?" While that may be a legitimate technique for an author, Winnie takes it too far. She has no connection to real world any longer. It's only as we read more scraps of her novel about Wendy Pritzke that things begin to come clear.As with many Maguire novels, the supernatural bleeds slowly into the real world, requiring no suspension of disbelief as we gradually accept the individual events and growing sense of unease.Jenny Sterlin does an excellent job reading the book. I'm not a huge fan of audiobooks, so I can't really compare her performance to that of other readers. I do think that this novel requires additional patience and attention than that given to most audiobooks. Before I listened to this book, I had read my printed copy. I knew the outcome, and I knew the format of the book. It contains a number of visual cues to explain just what you're reading, such as writing the Wendy Pritzke manuscript in another font (looks like Courier New). In the audiobook, the narrator changes her voice when reading the manuscript, but the change is subtle. Both the manuscript and novel are written in third person omniscient, and it can occasionally prove confusing as the book rapidly--and without transition--moves between the characters.Sterlin did an excellent job with this book, but I have to say that I wouldn't necessarily recommend this audiobook to a novice listener unless he or she were familiar with the novel.

I can't remember where, but somewhere along the line, I got the impression this was a retelling of Rip Van Winkle. It's not. This was, unlike Maguire's other novels, not really a retelling of anything. It had elements of A Christmas Carol and liberal references to Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and (interestingly) Jack the Ripper. The story itself was really sort of a grown-up coming of age story -- only throw in ghostly possession, a bizarre intra-familial love triangle, and a secondary Roman a Clef (being drafted by the protagonist) within the primary novel. It was fascinating and compelling - Maguire's intelligence and fluidity with words came through here more than in any of his retellings. There were a few issues that were never fully explained and while I found the secondary novel to be interesting insofar as the clues it provided to the protagonist's motivations, after a while (by the point at which I'd figured out the 'mystery') it began to detract from the real story.

** spoiler alert ** Winifred is an apathetic woman, broken by a love affair with the wrong man, a dead child and a destroyed marriage. Arriving at her cousins house in London she is greeted by a mystery.The back of the book alludes that this is possibly a retelling of A Christmas Carol. It is revealed in the book that there is a possible link between Winifreds family and Dickens, and that her great-great-great grandfather was possibly the inspiration for Scrooge.A lot of people feel that the retelling is tenuous at best. But it is the subtle things that make it clear what the story is. Winifred fulfils the role of Scrooge. Apathetic, not mean but not living life. She is stagnant.Her cousin is Marley. The note under the door knocker was a reference to Marleys face appearing there. Her cousin did everything for her, but when she went down, she lost him, a metaphorical death if you will.Wendy, her fictitious alter ego is used to reveal Winifreds past, in a way she embodies the ghost of christmas past. It is through her we learn the cause of Winifreds apathy.Gervsey (or however it was spelled) was the ghost of christmas present. She reflected the same story as Winifred but with a slightly different outcome. Both were women who lost a child, but where Winifred stood still, Gervsey refused to let go, she wanted to live more than anything. Mrs M, the dotty neighbour, was the ghost of christmas yet to come. Winifred would end up alone, without a husband and with plenty of cats. Drinking during the day and generally not living. Through all three ghosts Winifred realized she needed to move on. And she does, by deciding to adopt again, and to possibly settle down with the historian who helped her piece everything together.Some people felt the ending was too ambiguous, but in the original story, we never find out what Scrooge did with the rest of his life, just that he changed and moved on, which is exactly what Winifred did,

This is Gregory Maguire's first book that isn't a retelling of a fairy tale, and it's really wonderful. While it is definitely and openly inspired by tales such as Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, Dante's Inferno, and historical events like Jack the Ripper's murders, the novel goes in a wholly different direction than I ever would have imagined. In the end, it's a rather melancholy tale of trauma and the things we sometimes do to avoid dealing. It's always such a treat to read one of Maguire's books, and I have to say I hope he writes more original works like this one. His reimagined fairy tales are brilliant, but his own stories are just as juicy.

I don't take the time to write reviews of all the books I read because -- let's face it -- most of them aren't worth reviewing. I read a lot of books for pleasure -- to escape life and enjoy the stories of small towns and small minds because it gives me respite from the chaos and confusion of the real world. As Maguire himself writes of the nonsensical Wonderland that has become our world, "We live there full-time. We need a break from it" (58). So when I stumble upon a book like this that stretches my intellect, I endure a sort of battle of wills with the two sides of myself -- the one that wants to read for entertainment and the one who wants to be inspired to write.Lost is about Winifred Rudge (she has more names, but to list them would spoil plot), but more than that, it is a universal story about the blocked writer. And not just the great writer who is looking for the next great plot, but the average writer who is flirting with the habits that lead to becoming a great writer, but hesitant to risk the plunge. Winnie is an unreliable narrator who alludes to classic literature and poetry as often and as involuntarily as she breathes. She often does this to escape what is right in front of her, and this is probably why so many readers and reviewers of this book hate her. She meanders through the first hundred pages of the book nonsensically, and one wonders if she will ever make a move of any significance or discover anything that she can't rationalize away. In fact, if it weren't for the introduction of Irv Hausserman, the one positive life-giving, hope-offering character in a universe of apathetic "shoo shoo"-ers, I might have given up on her too. I'm glad I didn't.I will break in here to review Gregory Maguire as a writer in general. I am surprised to find that so many people LOVED "Wicked," much as the writing community that I flirted with for a short time around 2010 was shocked to find so many people who LOVED the complicated narrative in Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who..." trilogy. These are dark materials that call us to question the universally accepted constructs of our suffocating social systems -- why do rapists get away with rape? Why are people in need of help refused benefits? Why do schools teach one-sided historical accounts that paint MY country as hero when no hero is really ever all good? I would guess that the reason these books are LOVED is that people want to fit in and they know other people are reading them and LOVING them. So I can see why Lost was not LOVED by many -- it is too dark, too meandering, too high-brow, and it doesn't weave in enough of any recognizable children's story to fit neatly into Maguire's collection of allegorical upside-down fairy tales. But his books are worth reading, if nothing else but to stretch one's imagination, to see the other side of any story, to recognize that "heroes" are often just the ones rich and powerful enough to have their stories ghost-written and published.For those of you who aren't turned off by meandering, by an Alice-like character stumbling through a Sherlock-like plot in a Dickens-like setting, by atheist convictions clashing with supernatural happenings, and by the characteristic sermons that predictably interrupt Maguire's plots, you will love this book.P.S. This book is best read in a dusty, unfinished basement in dim-lighting around Christmas time.

I would give this story a solid 4 stars, maybe even a 4.5 (but not a full 5 stars). While I thoroughly enjoyed this story, I can see where others might not. Upon picking up the book, and knowing the author’s other works, many probably get the notion that this is the Ebenezer Scrooge version of “Wicked”. This however, couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact is, the Scrooge connection to the story is tenuous at best. This is an original story about an original character, who happens to be a distant relative of the man that might have inspired Scrooge almost two hundred years ago. The other aspect that will turn off some readers is the main character herself, and the way that the story is presented. From the start, the protagonist “Winnie” is absolutely unlikeable. She is unnecessarily rude and short with other people, does not let other people get close, and genuinely is unpleasant. By the end of the story, we find out that Winnie has suffered a tragic loss and her unpleasantness is a symptom of this grief, that is ultimately destroying her. By the end of the story, Winnie becomes a much more sympathetic character.I would also argue that the way the author presents the narrative (as seen from Winnie’s fractured perspective) can be jarring for some readers. Personally, I thought this was very well done, as we are left with bits of information that ultimately coalesce into a complete picture. However, readers that need to be spoon fed information would likely be confused. Rest assured, by the very end there is no ambiguity as to what has happened. It just takes time to get there. This is the fourth book by Maguire that I have read. While I liked “Wicked” and (especially) “Confessions” better, “Lost” is significantly better than “Hiddensee”.

The back cover blurb doesn’t do this book justice! I’ve read the whole Wicked series by Maguire, as well as his Hiddensee, and this was just as entertaining and thought-provoking. Maguire has a way of making you think and explore your own emotions in feelings, all while describing fairly minimal action. I know not everyone enjoys his work, but I definitely do. This book follows writer Winnie Rudge on her journey to London, ostensibly to research Jack the Ripper and her own family’s legends regarding Dickens and Scrooge. Along the way, she investigated a potential haunting at her ancestral home, encounters colorful characters, and is forced to explore her own grief and trauma. Winnie is unlikeable, bristly, cruel to those around her. But she’s also suffering, disappointed by her life and aiming towards more. So in the end, I liked her as a heroine. Her sadness and wry rudeness propelled the story and shed any blandness and despondency that might otherwise have overshadowed Maguire’s writing.

Gregory Maguire reinvents himself again as a writer. This book is almost a perfect spiral into the heart of loss and what traumatic loss requires of us in order to heal. On the outer edges of the spiral there is little that seems to connect or make sense, but bump along with the story and you will be surprised at what is going on, as the spiral tightens and the facts unfold. It’s a joy to be privy to the wily mind of Mr. Maguire, and a pleasure to be a reading recipient of his skills.

I actually think this book is quite stunning. It's very much an insight to Mr. Maguire himself if you pay attention. a writer writing about a writer who is struggling to write a story. I really enjoyed the fact that the location didn't move much but the story kept my interest. I love his writing style and can't wait to read more of his stories.

Winnie goes to London to write her book on the haunting of Jack the Ripper. While in London she finds herself haunted by her past tragedy and a 700 year old spirit. The spirit cannot die and Winnie cannot live. Will they change places?

I found this book in the YA section of the library, and after reading it, I'd never recommend this to anyone under the age of 16. It's a dark book but very well written. Maguire does an excellent job combining the stories of Scrooge and Jack the Ripper along with other literary references.