Bolstered by a content warning leading into the novella, the first quarter of Lost in the Moment and Found is deeply upsetting as Seanan McGuire introduces readers to Antsy, a small child who had a very good life until her father died and her mother remarried to a man who was not…good. Because this is a Wayward Children novel, she leaves. She runs. She finds a door and she is sure.

Where the Drowned Girls Go introduce another school that is run very differently than Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children. Throughout the series, McGuire has alternated between the present day at the schools and the backstory of a child who doesn’t belong finding a door. Lost in the Moment and Found is a story of a child escaping into a door, but moreso than any other novella in the Wayward Children series it expands the universe far wider than anything McGuire has revealed thus far because Antsy’s door doesn’t lead to another world, it leads to a shop between worlds, a nexus as other characters described it.

This is to be appreciated because while a long running series can be comfortable in formula, those moments that break the formula or escalate the story beyond where it was before are to be treasured. Lost in the Moment and Found offers that moment once the reader is allowed to breathe.

I am so happy to be able to keep reading this fantastic series. Every book continues to delight me, and this one is no exception. This book follows Antsy, who becomes one of the Wayward children after her father passes away and has a new stepfather with all the bad vibes. The way McGuire is able to build the tension in the first half is terrific. I felt skeeved out and gross, waiting for something terrible to happen. The middle is filled with whimsy and feels very much like Howl's Moving Castle's magical door mixed with other fantasy tropes. And, of course, it ends on a not-so-happy note, as many of her stories do. I hope we see more of Antsy and see her deal with her trauma. I really liked her door and world, and we learned more about some of the magic in the world. I can't wait to go back and read more of this series. I definitely recommend this to fans of this series. It is one of the great stand-alone ones.

This book is the next in the Wayward Children's series, which is consistently intriguing! I enjoyed Antsy's story, the look into more worlds, and a little explanation about the doors. I will definitely continue reading this series as long as it's written and published!

*4.5 stars
This instalment of The Wayward Children series was so emotional because of the topics involved and the writing spoke to me. This is my second favourite, my first being Down Among The Sticks and Bones. Our main character escapes to a world where lost things end up and she can walk through different doors. We visit new worlds but also we visit some familiar worlds that I was excited to see. Seanan Mcguire also gave us some answers about the world and how it works which she hasn't done in the other books. I just wished this book was longer but that's the beauty of The Wayward Children series, it always leaves you wanting more.

Wow. The Wayward Children series continues to captivate me with each additional entry. LOST IN THE MOMENT AND FOUND is no exception. This novella is perhaps my favourite in the entire series so far next to DOWN AMONG THE STICKS AND BONES. While likely the heaviest, most difficult book in this universe so far, it’s also an incredibly powerful story.

Our protagonist in LOST IN THE MOMENT AND FOUND is Antsy. The novella begins when Antsy witnesses her father dies suddenly and unexpectedly in front of her. This leads to a series of events that necessitate the content warnings provided at the beginning of the novella, including grooming and adult gaslighting. Tough Antsy runs before anything happens on page, I found the beginning incredibly difficult for this reason, so please heed these content warnings if you’re sensitive to this subject matter.

When Antsy finds her door, however, we get an intriguing world reminiscent of Howl’s Moving Castle. Antsy finds herself in the Shop Where Lost Things Go. It’s a magical place full of treasures from countless realms, all of which are brought through a series of doors that can be opened by children. But as with most things, the doors exact their own price.

If you’re looking for a jumping point for this series, LOST IN THE MOMENT AND FOUND is one of the novellas that can be read as an independent entry into the series. And I would, if you haven’t already, highly recommend both this series and this particular entry in it. McGuire delivers the emotionally cathartic, compelling blend of bittersweet the Wayward Children series has at its best in LOST IN THE MOMENT AND FOUND.

Thank you to Tordotcom and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.

This is another solid book in the Wayward Children series. In this book, we get the story of Antoinette (Antsy), who I'll admit I don't remember from the previous book but I wish I did.

Antsy is a child running away from the potential of a bad situation with her stepfather (CW/TW here, see McGuire's own note about this at the beginning of the book), who ends up where the lost things go. But the shop has things to hide, and it's more than things that are lost.

I loved this book, and I'm so excited that we continue to get more from this universe.

Thank you to netgalley for the eARC I received.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this review copy. Another incredible entry in the Wayward Children series. I truly hope this series never ends, each book is as wonderful as the last.

This book had a much more heavy topic to discuss, with how adults often steal children's childhoods through their actions. I was pulled into the story though and finished it in one day. The idea of a shop full of lost things that people can come to get things back was fascinating to read about. This series just gets better and better with every book.

CW: grooming, gaslighting

3.5 stars

This was a very different book to the rest of the Wayward Children series. It was a lot darker than the others, both in the story that leads up to Antsy going through her door, as well as her life once she went through the door. Still good, but very dark.

I've been in love with the Wayward Children series for a very long time. As soon as I read "Every Heart a Doorway", I was hooked. They speak to a part of me that goes unspoken and it feels like I'm finally understood by someone else. Even if that person is a stranger I can appreciate it. This is the eighth installment and while I did enjoy it, it didn't live up to the past couple. It was shorter and could have gone into more details following Antsy growing up. I like that McGuire brought up normally taboo topics like grooming and other types of child abuse. I can relate to a lot of what Antsy was going through. The world was beautiful, as usual. The writing was wonderful, as usual. I usually end up bawling in the last parts of her books but this one didn't demolish my heart. That is probably the major reason that keeps it from being a five star read. I still loved it but I wasn't emotionally tormented. Anyway I think everybody should read this series.

Lost in the Moment and Found is a novella which manages to balance a story about grooming, escape, and gaslighting with a story about choices and knowledge. The ways children pick up on things, plot holes, glances they can't quite decipher, yet know are wrong. The beginning parts of Lost in the Moment and Found broke my heart. All the lengths adults will go to discount the feelings of children. To continue living in a fantasy in fear about what these words could mean.

I’m feeling pretty melancholic after finishing Lost in the Moment and Found. Most of the books in the Wayward Children series have an edge of horror or sadness to them, but Lost in the Moment and Found really drags you down. There are a few glimmers of hope, but it continually keeps you submerged in the depression.

From the first page, Antsy is everything little girls should be: wild and free with no threat of adulthood and no sense of fear or apprehension. But it drastically changes so quickly and then continues to get worse from there.

I don’t usually look to McGuire for uplifting or happy books, but I wasn’t quite prepared to end feeling so sorry for Antsy and her lost childhood. On top of the sadness I feel for Antsy, after reading eight books in the Wayward Children series, I can't believe there isn't a next book to reach for. It looks like there should be another two books coming out in the next few years, and I can only hope there are even more to come so I can once again escape into this incredible world.

Thanks to Netgalley & Macmillan Tor-Forge for the ARC of this book!

I can't believe this is #8 of this series, and it's official...I'm definitely not sick of it yet. Each of these small novellas follows a different character; each child just doesn't quite belong in our world. After stepping through a doorway labeled "Be Sure", they are transported to a new world.

While I enjoyed the world building around Antsy's new world, it didn't quite live up to the standards of previous books. In An Absent Dream and Beneath the Sugar Sky remain as my favorite worlds in the series thus far. Antsy's journey though, was what separated this book from its predecessors. There's a theme running through the series that most worlds do have a price to exact, but Antsy's was definitely the saddest price to pay and it was a small twist that I wasn't expecting. I'm hoping that this book sets up another book that takes place in the Home. I enjoy the standalone books, but am still just as invested in the larger storyline. I also feel like it's been awhile since we've had a book focused more on the Home and the larger cast of characters, although that could be my imagination.

I know that eventually this series is going to wind down, but I hope we at least have another 5 or so books. I'm not sure when I'll get bored of this series, so far its kept my attention and I'm always eagerly anticipating the next chapter in the story!

Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This Wayward Children book is very good for what it is. There isn't so much magic and adventure in it, but that's all right because it seems some of the best magic is often the quiet, stable kind.

There's a bit of trauma in here that may hit close to many people's homes. It's not just gaslighting and emotional abuse, but the potential for a whole lot worse.

Getting back into the core of Wayward Children is the need to escape, after all, and I think this does the job admirably.

Sometimes finding oneself is everything.

4.5/5 stars

TW for: grooming, gaslighting, childhood sexual abuse, death of a loved one, trauma in general

Thanks so much to Macmillan and Netgalley for offering me an early copy for review!

Every time I read one of these books, I'm immediately transported into the weird and wonderful little worlds. They're short, sweet (or not so sweet, sometimes), and really pack a punch despite their length. I think that really pays homage to the author's storytelling--she really has a knack for it. This story, however, hit harder than the rest of the ones I've read by her.

I've had my fair share of trauma to deal with re: CSA, so at times this was difficult to process and I took a lot of breaks, but I really loved the way that the author touched respectfully on triggers in the beginning of the novel. I related to the main character and her struggles, and was thankful to the author for illustrating her in such a sensitive and hard-hitting way.

All in all, this was a wonderful story that I am going to treasure forever. I can't wait to get my finished copy and I hope Seanan McGuire continues to tell these stories, because there are so many people out there yearning for them!

From the very first page of this book, where McGuire has written a thoughtful and beautiful author's note, I was immediately hooked.

As the author's note states, this book is easily McGuire's hardest hitting book to date in the Wayward Children series. This book is a fantastically crafted allegory on the loss of innocence as we are following Antsy as she ventures to The Land Where Lost Things go.

I really enjoy and appreciate that every world that we visit in this series is unlike any that we have visited before and this is definitely true with this book. I also liked how it felt like we learnt a little more about the Doorways and excited to keep learning more as the series continues.

This book hurt. I loved it, but it really, really hurt.

I already can't wait for the next book!

This might be my favourite of the series yet. First off I would say read the author’s note. McGuire gives a thoughtful summary of trigger warnings, such as grooming and gaslighting. While these topics are heavy McGuire writes them with such precision never stepping over the line but keeping such strong emotional resonance. From Antsy’s grief in loosing her father to the new feeling of fear and trepidation inspired by her step father all have so much emotion pouring from the page.

The darkness of the first half is complimented so beautifully by the magic of Antsy’s door. I think by far it is my favourite world we have visited in the Wayward children series. There is still a little darkness and sadness to the world, an almost Wonderland quality to it where there is just a touch of darkness in all the wonder. It is beautiful in its darkness. Like the whole series it finds the joy of childhood and highlights little beads of sadness that come with growing up.

To me this was a gorgeous and poignant edition to the wayward children series.

Lost in the Moment and Found may just be the most heartbreaking entry so far in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. Which is not something I thought I would ever say after reading the end of In An Absent Dream (book #4), but there you have it. Because the even-numbered books in this series are stand-alone stories set in the characters’ pasts and can be read in order, I’m not going to assume anyone reading this review has read Absent Dream and spoil that ending – suffice to say, the conclusion of Lost in the Moment feels like Absent Dream’s opposite twin. People who have read both will understand what I’m getting at.

Lost in the Moment and Found is the portal story of Antionette, called “Antsy,” and it starts with the heartbreak of a child witnessing the death of a beloved parent. This is not a spoiler, as it happens in the first few pages and sets the stage for everything that will come after, but more of a Content Warning: if childhood loss of a parent disturbs you, you should go in to this book forewarned. In fact, this is one of several Content Warnings. All of the Wayward Children books deal with heavy topics, but this one involves gaslighting, grooming, emotional abuse of a child, and the clear intimation of impending sexual assault of a minor. But McGuire also assures us in an opening note: “Antsy runs. Before anything can actually happen, Antsy runs.”

And when Antsy does run, the Door that appears for her, with the traditional admonishment to Be Sure written above it, takes her to The Shop Where the Lost Things Go. Unsurprisingly, this is yet another of McGuire’s intriguing and deeply-developed portal worlds – but with a difference. There is no Quest for Antsy to go on to save the locals from a Great Evil before she can go home; there is no clear villain to overcome. There are just lost things to be catalogued and shelved until the person who lost them shows up to claim them, or until they are so forgotten they can be sold to someone else. The Shop has two other residents: a secretive and commanding old woman named Vineta, and a talking magpie named Hudson, who hire Antsy because of her ability to open the Doors that appear throughout the shop, allowing Vineta and Antsy to go shopping across myriad portal worlds. (Most of the worlds Antsy visits are worlds readers of the series have not seen before that I hope we’ll see more of – but I have to admit I might have squealed a bit in delight at the brief appearance by my favorite of the portal worlds we have seen before. I won’t spoil which one, or when it appears. It’s a fun call-out to earlier books.)

Also unsurprisingly, all is not as it seems with the Shop or its residents. The question that drives the narrative is whether or not Antsy will figure out what’s going on before it is too late for her to return home. The reader, of course, realizes the danger Antsy is in long before she does, but the reveal of the depths of that danger and its origins is beautifully revealed.

Lost in the Moment and Found comments on the ways in which we lose our innocence: sometimes suddenly (the unexpected death of a beloved parent; the unwanted advances of a dangerous adult) and sometimes so subtly we don’t even notice the change is happening (one of my favorite quotes from the book: “That’s one of the things about living in a body. It can change, but the ways it changes today will be the ways it has always been tomorrow. If the modification isn’t noted in the moment, then it can be all too easily dismissed.”). And while I found the book heartbreaking at multiple points, I also found it poignant and personal and imbued with hope that Antsy (and all of us) will eventually find the happiness and love she has lost.

Lest you think the book is a complete downer: there are plenty of moment of intrigue, of joyous exploration, and, without spoilers, comeuppance for at least some of those who deserve it. There are also hints at the nature of the portal Doors and why they appear to whom they do.

Lost in the Moment and Found isn’t the easiest book to read in the Wayward Children series, but it is an important one with what it has to say about the ways children are manipulated and taken advantage of and about how we start on the road to healing from trauma.

I received an advance reading copy of this book for free from TorDotCom Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Lost in the Moment and Found releases today, January 10th, 2023.

Ahoy there mateys! I say this every time I finish one of these novellas but I seriously could read dozens of books set in the various worlds.  This book starts with a trigger warning / disclaimer by the author and I am very glad because the first part of the book made me heart hurt and me skin crawl.  I could only get through it because of the author's promise.  It was extremely well-written though.  The second part involves Antsy going through her door to a place where the lost things go.  I would have loved being in the shop and digging through all the sections and finding random treasure.  I really enjoyed the markets she goes to and how she handled the other folk in the shop.  It was also nice to get a bit more understanding of how the doors work.  This can be read as a standalone but I suggest ye start from the beginning.  I am glad there are two more scheduled in this series.  Arrrr!

Lost in the Moment and Found is a hard read. Right at the beginning there is an explicit trigger warning, which I really appreciated as it meant I knew what to expect.

As with several of the Wayward Children books, this is not a happy read. It is, however, a moving one, a jarring one, a sad one.

I felt so much for Antsy and what she went through, feeling betrayed by everyone she loved. I was heartbroken for the child she was who didn’t trust that her mother would believe her, and for the version of her who realised that she probably would have.

I am, however, looking forward to seeing more of Antsy’s story, and I sincerely hope it will be a happier one.