Fetch Your Copy The Lost Daughter Illustrated By Lucy Ferriss Accessible From Publication

and beautiful! Deals with some pretty serious issues in a way that is understanding, Brooke OConnor elegant, selfpossessed, and kind has a happy marriage and a deeply loved young daughter, So her adamant refusal to have a second child confounds her husband, Sean, When Brookes high school boyfriend Alex now divorced and mourning the death of his young son unexpectedly resurfaces, Sean begins to suspect an affair,

For fifteen years Brooke has kept a shameful secret from everyone she loves, Only Alex knows the truth that drove them apart, His reappearance now threatens the life she has so carefully constructed and fortified by denial, With her marriage and her emotional equilibrium at stake, Brooke must confront what she has been unwilling to face for so long,

But the truth is not what Brooke believes it to be, I received this book for free from GR First Reads and was looking forward to reading it, but I couldn't get through the first few chapters.
The language that was used and the details of the birth and sex just turned me off, I feel like a story can be told without using the language and the detail that was used in this book, And okay, maybe the gorey details of the birth were needed for later in the story, to really understand what happened to her, but I even went several chapters farther into the book, and I just couldn't get into the story.
I was turned off. And I'm sure the book got happier in the end, but it was just so depressing I couldn't get into it, I tried several times, and failed, I can normally find something in a book to keep me pushing through the book, but this time I couldn't, For fifteen years Brooke has kept a secret form everyone she loves, Only her former boyfriend Alex, knows what happened after four and one half months into Brooke's pregnancy while in high school,

The truth was so very unexpected,
While in high school Brooke finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, Alex, her high school sweetheart, finds himself in the horrible place of having to deliver prematurely the baby in a seedy hotel room, Having hidden the pregnancy no one realizes that they just dispose of the newborn,

Fifteen years later, Brooke is married and has a daughter with her husband, Sean, Alex is recently divorced after suffering the death of his young son, Neither Alex nor Brooke have shared the burden of their secret with anyone else in the lives, His reappearance in her life has begun to threaten her current life, Brooke and Alex must not confront what they have been unable to face, While searching for the truth Brooke finds what she believed to have happen to not be the whole truth, In finding the truth, Brooke and Alex both find the strength to move forward with their lives and find the happiness they both have denied themselves.


The emotions in this novel tugged at my heart from the very first page, The relationships between

all the characters were very painful and felt extremely real, I felt myself being pulled deeper and deeper in Brooke and Seans family problems, Feeling Brookes fear and pain as she searches for the truth of what happen to her baby that horrible night in the hotel and her fear in how her husband and family will react to knowing what happen.
The Lost Daughter is amazing, Such sensitive subjects being brought up so tastefully and carefully, If you enjoy and great read with a deep and beautifully written story this is a book for you, A slower start but a good book, Takes you through a lot of emotions for all of the main characters, I can see why some got angry when reading this book but if it gets you that worked up then it must be well written.
It is not a fairy tale or love story but a story of bad choices and how the two deal with their choices and roles in those choices throughout the nextyears.
I kept reading to see how they would try to find or find closure from these events, It puts characters to some of the most saddening stories in the headlines, A lot of people I have found didn't like the tone and disturbing nature of this book, I think the pretty cover throws people off, So don't let the cover fool you, It definitely is not a light hearted read, However it is really good,

The characters are really unlikeable in the beginning, but that is what kept me reading, I was tired of perfect characters in every book I read, It is a good story about redemption and closure, The only things I didn't like were little inconsistencies in the supporting characters and how it glamorizes having an affair, I will say this if you are against abortion do not read this book it will just make you pissed off, I'd heard amazing things about this book so I was eager to read it, Came across a copy at work and instantly dove in, My hopes were high, but unfortunately not met, While the premise of the plot was a good one a teenage couple hide a pregnancy and then dispose of the child believing that she is the victim of a stillbirth and carry the weight and secret of their guilt around with them into their adult lives a weight and guilt that affects all of their decisions and relationships in the future until they are forced to confront their past mistakes somewhere around half way through the book, the plot just fell apart for me.
Suddenly the events in the book seemed less and less plausible ie: Brooke just happens to stumble upon her abandoned child after fifteen years and knows INSTANTLY who she is and Alex happens to stumble into the exact city/alley where the woman who found his child is being rapedand I found my interest waning.
I wish Ferriss hadn't made everything so easy for her characters where they literally stumbled over the answers they needed, On the up side, the entire book was very well written, I read the first chapter three weeks ago, It was a very interesting chapter which would normally have caught my attention to keep reading, However I was convinced that I knew just how the book would progress amp what the outcome would be, Didn't touch it after that for three weeks, Spoke to my daughter who had also read it, She said she had felt the same way at first, She urged me to keep reading it, I'm glad I did. Several interesting twists amp surprises that I was not expecting, Once I picked it back up, I had a hard time putting it down, Very good book. loved this story I just had to stop reading it, First, the opening chapter was incredibly graphic and disturbing and for anyone who has strong feeling about abortion or have had an abortion or, . . geez, really anybody it's a really, really hard chapter,

The other reason I couldn't finish it is the main character, Brooke, was entirely unsympathetic to me which is hugely ironic, She read as a weak character to me, Her husband annoyed me. Alex had too much of the martyr to him, The only person I really liked was Najda, and after almost half the book, there wasn't enough about her,

I think the subject matter and topic is interesting, but this book just can't tell the story in my opinion, I am not happy that I paid money for this book, Weak moment at Target: My decision to purchase this book weighed mostly on one of my favorite author's Wally Lamb recommendation comment on the cover of the book,

This review DOES contain spoilers

Let me list my reasons for my dislike of this book:
First of all, let me state that I am prochoice, BUT not as a method of birth control in the third trimester.


This is supposed to be two very smart teens at the time of their decision to go to a MOTEL and deliver a child third trimester with the help of a metal SPOON Then wrap the child in a MOTEL towel and put in a wooden crate in the rain by the DUMPSTER.
. . This makes me ILL to even think of it, ENOUGH SAID. I was enraged at this point,

As a teenager, Brooke had a very open relationship with her mother regarding birth control and the decision to choose the diaphram over the pill.
how the HECK can Brooke NOT tell her mother that she is pregnant How the HECK can her mother or father not notice that the skinny, only child Brooke is heavier This does NOT make sense.
. . but wait, the author takes Brooke to a "witch doctor" my words to drink a magic potion to miscarry, which doesn't happen,

Sean, Brooke's husband and his large family, are all butting in regarding how many children each of them should be producing Really Please tell me in anyone's family, when is that anyone's business

Brooke's boss is dying, transfers her to a new location and promotion, and she just up and disappears for a week without calling in And the boss just forgives her and sets up a trust upon his death, giving her everything REALLY

Why does the former boyfriend, Alex the father of the poor, disabled little girl left to die, keep calling that little girl a "HE" I read the whole book and never figured that out.


Why is Brooke prostituting herself to Alex to get him to put up money for the newly discovered disabled child

It took FIFTEEN years to rediscover their child If Alex hadn't started to feel guilty, would Brooke ever had Something wrong there!

Finally, REALLY, the sterotypes of the Irish being drunks.
So over that.

I was so mad reading this book, I actually kept a note pad next to me, noting everything in this book that ticked me off.
I started reading this book while vacationing in New England, I lived in Hartford for several years and had no idea the book was set in that location, I finished reading it driving home alongthrough Scranton, It was all a bit surreal, All that being said I didn't love the characters, Really wanted to ring their necks for their intelligence and abhorrent stupidity, But I appreciated they were flawed in very real ways and the story took twists that were not always expected, In the end it was a more than decent read and not simply due to nostalgia, I have not read nearly as much as I'd like to lately,

I have to say, this book was such a great choice to beginwith,

I found the basic premise of the novel to be interesting and compelling,
There was an slight element of mystery in the novel, I like that nothing felt too contrived or forced,

It was easy to go on this journey with Sean, Nadja, Brooke and Alex,

Overall, these were flawed people, however, they were people I could empathize with, While their choices were at times were horrible, they were totally understandable,
There is an element of the dilemma feeling a little like something Jodi Picoult would have written, however, I felt Ferriss handled her conflict with a greater amount of finesse.
I did not feel that the author tried to make her audience feel any certain way about what was happening with the characters,

THe pace of the novel was good, the characters were very interesting, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and will look for others written by this novel,

Give this book time, At aboutpages or so, it becomes riveting and stays that way for the rest of its story, I admit, I wanted to drop kick all of the main characters in those firstor so pages, and still kinda wanted to drop kick most of them after that, but I got to understand them better, and the book was well worth reading.
The story itself was enjoyable enough but I am incredibly not here for the casually tossed around racism and ableism sprinkled through out the book.
Even if I had LOVED the story, I wouldn't be reading this author again, So since it was just "okay enough to finish", that's a definite hard pass on any of their future works, I did not like this book, At all. It's one of those books that I only finished because I have to finish all books I start,

I did not like any of the characters, except for the grandfather, He was the only one with any sense,

Sean was horrible, I hated how whinny and insecure he was, I hated how he would not accept the fact that his wife didn't want to be pregnant again, Her body, her choice is my opinion,

I hated how stuck in the past Brooke and Alex were, I hate everything about everyone,

Bad, bad book, Started out slow. I can see how the opening could be offensive and turn off some readers, I persisted thru it and came out a fan of this book, In the beginning I just wanted to tell the main characters to get over it and move on with their lives, Keep readingit gets better and redeems itself for the slow start, This wasn't the best book I have ever read, and it wasn't the worst, The characters said and did what you expected them to say and do, and the ending was more or less predictable, I did enjoy the book overall, despite it being a middling read,

I read a number of reviews of this book, with varying degrees of criticism, and the one that stuck out to me was the one complaining about the characters always looking back instead of putting the past behind them.
That is an impossible expectation for real life, and to wish it for a book is to wish for a different sort of book, In that respect, I think the author got it right, I think the author understood, and conveyed in a reasonably convincing way, how trauma can change you, and how just putting it behind you amp moving forward into your future life is not always easy, or even always possible.
Brooke amp Alex experienced something AS TEENS that most adults would be traumatized by, and their attempts to tuck it into a little box and set it aside no pun intended damaged them as much as.
. . well, I won't spoil it for those who haven't read it yet, So it is hardly unpredictable that their lives would start to unravel, and hardly surprising that their quest for peace would take them back to the beginning.
That is human psychology in a nutshell, Predictable, sure, but the nuts amp bolts of human psychology nonetheless,

I do think Ferriss tied up the book a little too neatly, Things worked out a little too perfectly for my imperfect and offkilter taste, The necessary money was just a little too easy to get, The mom was just a little too ready to help, after having been critical amp hurtful because Brooke didn't turn out how she planned, Alex went from one conviction to the other a little too easily to believe, Too neat. Too tidy. Too wrapped up nicely in a box see, there's the pun again, I like ambiguity, and the impossibility of fixing things, . . of finding a balance in some relationships, Truthfully, a bit more of that would have made this book stronger, There was plenty of struggle, but in the end, it was just a bit too easy to "fix, "
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