DNF at 60%. I was really excited about this and loved all of the magical elements combined with missing girls/women. But it's just not doing it for me at this point--the story is too slow, and getting this far without much of the magic, just having heard of the magic, isn't keeping my attention.

3.5/5 <3
After reading the wishing game by the same author, I was really happy to see that I got approved for this one, and even more excited to see that it was inspired by chronicles of narnia! I especially loved how diverse the characters were. It was a bit slow in the beginning, but its coziness was something that kept me reading. Thank you for this beautiful book!

Favorite quote from The Lost Story- "All books are magic. An object that can take you to another world without even leaving your room? A story written by a stranger and yet it seems they wrote it just for you? Loving and hating people made out of ink and paper, not flesh and blood? Yes, books are magic. Maybe even the strongest magic there is."
I absolutely loved Meg Shaffer's The Wishing Game. It was a 5 star read for me last year. This fairytale/coming out/survival story was inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia & Lord of the Flies.
This was a beautiful story about love, hope, fear & acceptance while trying to find your way forward in spite of the traumas of your past. The author states she wrote this book for the LGTBQIA+ community. It reads more YA & would be great for anyone that may be dealing with prejudices surrounding their sexuality. The friendships of Skya, Emilie, Rafe & Jeremy reminded me of that one saying "friends are the family you choose". This foursome would die for one another and the bonds they shared transcended worlds. The ending sets this fairytale up for a series so we shall see. Also there's a recipe for a Golden Apple Christmas Cake at the end.
So if you want a story about adventure, friendship, & acceptance this is for you.

As children, Jeremy and Rafe disappeared for six months only to reappear with no explanation. Rafe has scars but no memory of what happened and Jeremy has never told him that they traveled to an enchanted magical land. When Emilie hires Jeremy, now a famed missing persons investigator, to find her missing sister, Jeremy must come clean to Rafe about their past and return to the enchanted world to recover everything they lost.

After her darling bestseller The Wishing Game, I was excited to see Meg Shaffer take on a new story with Narnia vibes. At first, I loved the mystery of Jeremy and Rafe and their time in a magical land when they were children. However, once they traveled through the looking glass, the book just completely tanked. The plot, pacing, world-building, dialogue and character relationships were all very poorly executed in the second half. A terribly disappointing read that I can't recommend to anyone.

3.5/5

The premise of this book really gripped me, and my favourite genre is magical realism. However, I felt like I struggled to get through this book as it wasn't particularly fast paced (especially the first part). As I result I wasn't particularly drawn in and didn't feel like picking it up too often. Saying that, I thought it was an overall pleasant read with a lovely element of found family (and I'm a big fan of Jeremy and Rafe). If I had read it at a different time perhaps I would have enjoyed it a bit more. I do like the ideas / premises of the books this author writes and will pick up whatever comes next.

The Lost Story is proof that you’re never too old for a good fairy tale. This grown-up nod to Narnia had just enough magic, mystery, and whimsy to keep me reading straight through from start to finish.

Thank you Meg Shaffer, Ballantine Books, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

I absolutely loved this book. I was so attached to the characters. Meg Shaffer has a way of writing that once you finish you're forlorn at returning to the real world. I definitely want a sequel to this one.

I love a portal fantasy! I like the juxtaposition of the fantastical and mundane, and I think there’s a lot of room in the genre to write the kind of story you like. Shaffer wrote the kind of story I like.

The characters were great - I like the number of the platonic relationships developed through the book, and I really loved the storytelling framework. By the end of the book I had cried real tears and laughed real laughs.

It did start… quite slow. I almost DNFed at 30% - by 40% I was in it and so glad I stuck it out.

This was an interesting and unique novel that kept my attention. I really enjoyed the characters and how much they cared about one another.

5 enchanting stars for this one. I immediately became completely enraptured by the magic that this book is. It took hold of me and did not let go until long after I was finished. It was one of those books that will stick with me and I will think about the characters for a long time. I highly recommend!

I loved this book. It was an adventurous, imaginative and sweet story about two best friends who get lost in the woods as kids and how they come back together in adulthood. I felt like I was escaping life during this read and it had a nostalgic quality that reminded me of my childhood favorite, "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe". Highly recommend for someone who wants something emotional and escapist.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House-Ballantine Publishing for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

I was so excited to dive into this, I mean look at that cover, it's swoon worthy! I had heard so many amazing things about Meg's debut, so I was pumped to receive this ARC. I immediately was drawn into the story of two boys who have gone missing, only to return 6 months later healthy and unharmed. Years pass without them speaking, one boy knowing the full extent of their time "lost", while the other has no memories from that time.

I could not wait for them to return to where they were "lost" and discover what really occurred, but that is where the book lost me. I wanted magic and all the forest feels, but got none of that. I felt the dialog was a tad childish (these characters are adults when they return to this magical world) and the story was more telling vs. showing. There were chapters with a storyteller filling you in what had happened rather then reading about the characters experiences. That took me out of the story and made it feel flat.

While I wanted more of the magical feels and world building, I did love the romance storyline of this book. It's what kept me reading to the end.

Delightful fun but the pacing was all over the place and it felt unfinished (which may have been the point). Parts of it were fully fleshed out and others were half assed ideas pinned on at random. I wish it were more focused narratively, but I still enjoyed it a lot.

I loved this so much I will be getting the hardcover. For grown ups that love Narnia and wanting their own magical story, and finding out what happens when you return to a magical world.

I found this book to drag on. I felt a lack of connection to the characters and felt lost with the style of storytelling. The little breaks from the story teller just took me out. I was overall not a fan.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Quick summary: Jeremy and Rafe went missing in the forest 15 years ago under unusual circumstances, and they reappeared in the forest 6 months later under even more unusual circumstances. Now present day, Emilie enlists their help to find her missing sister that disappeared in the same forest as them many years ago.

I’ll be honest and say this book did not hit as well as The Wishing Game for me. I went into this book with high expectation because of how much I loved Shaffer’s first book, but I was underwhelmed. For starters, I usually prefer a more dialogue heavy book. This one had a lot more “telling” of what happened than “showing,” and I felt like I couldn’t connect with the characters, settings, or events very well. The characters didn’t feel like the ages they were supposed to be (felt more like teens), and the relationships felt forced instead of natural.

The beginning started out fun and mysterious, but as we got closer and closer to the midway point I started to lose focus. The world building wasn’t super clear to me so I struggled with setting the scenes in my head. This book took me a lot longer than usual to read because I could only read it in short sittings. The build up in the beginning was long and drawn out, the action and resolution were over in a blink, and then the ending left me a little underwhelmed.

I thought the storyteller moments were a fun way to remind the reader that this is supposed to be an adult version of a fairytale. I really wanted to enjoy it as much as The Wishing Game, but it just didn’t wow me the same. And the Wishing Game was a 5 star read for me, so maybe my expectations were just too high for this one, who knows. I look forward to trying Meg Shaffer’s next novel and I hope I enjoy it.

The first half had me fully engaged and on the edge of my seat as a woman is in search of her missing sister. It reads like a thriller with hints of fears fantasy. This primed me to expect that tone and pacing to carry throughout the book. However about halfway through the book, the mood and pace completely changed to what felt like an entirely different book, and even genre. The intrigue and suspense dropped off causing me to have to force myself to continue.

I think if the author would have kept a consistent tone throughout the book or even paced and plotted the book in a way that gave the reader more time to adjust, it could have been a favorite of the year. But unfortunately I couldn’t get past the stark contrast and it took away from my enjoyment.

Meg Schaffer delivered another magical and heartwarming tale full of magic and adventure. A fairytale for adults, full of love and heartbreak.

“As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.“

Ostensibly a fairy tale but nowhere near as traumatic as the ones Grim wrote. This is the story of two teens who vanished in the woods one fine day then returned home six months later irrevocably changed. One gains a magical ability to find lost people and things. The other a magical ability to get birds to do as he says. Fifteen years later, they choose to intentionally get lost in those same woods again and therein lies the tale. Part quest, part self-discovery, they find each other again, unafraid of what lies between them and committed to facing the world at each other’s side.

A cute story that was not necessarily for me. It took a long time to get into, but I can see strengths that others will like.