The novel moved quickly and the themes are present enough where I wanted to stick around to see what it was all leading to. It's a compelling story here and I’m very impressed that it is a debut novel. This was an okay rea for me. Not the worst I've read but also not one I would probably recommend to other readers.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley.

Found Objects Society by Michelle Maryk presents a compelling premise: a secretive group that collects discarded or overlooked items, each with a hidden story or significance. The idea is fresh and thought-provoking, especially for readers who appreciate literary fiction with a touch of magical realism or quiet mystery.

Maryk’s prose is often poetic, and she does a good job creating atmosphere. There are moments of real beauty and emotional resonance throughout the book. The characters, while intriguing, sometimes feel underdeveloped or enigmatic to a fault, which made it hard to connect with them fully. The pacing is also inconsistent—parts of the novel move slowly, with introspection that sometimes stalls the narrative rather than deepens it.

Overall, it’s a unique and artistic read that will appeal to fans of conceptual storytelling, but it may leave others wishing for a more cohesive plot and stronger character arcs. Worth a read if you’re in the mood for something different and quietly strange.

This is a book I can see myself recommending to many; I was captivated from the first page!

The descriptive yet easy to read writing style that Maryk displayed throughout the book transported me straight into every scene. I was transfixed by the world that Greta was in, especially during her voyages. The time travel aspect and multiple timelines / povs was captivating. I loved how each part was marked by an image of the found object that Greta chooses for that particular voyage. This was a page turner for me, except for the lull I personally experienced reading Zephyrine’s voyage.

I was a little disappointed by how rushed Greta and Ezra’s romance developed. There wasn’t really any chemistry build up. Although I do understand that Maryk was trying to paint the picture of their instant connection through shared grief, I wish there would’ve been more of a slown burn when it came to their relationship.

Overall this was an incredible read for me and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I found myself longing for the next time I could pick it up and burn through the next few chapters and be lost in the many worlds that Maryk was able to create. The epilogue was *chefs kiss*

The time travel aspect was interesting but wanting to relive death experiences wasn’t for me. Too much rich ennui

The Found Object Society pulled me in with its creepy, imaginative premise. Greta Davenport gets invited to this secretive society where members can relive someone else’s final moments through the object they died holding and get a rush from it. The pacing starts a bit episodic and heavy with setup, but once Greta becomes hooked, the drive keeps you turning pages. The world is weird and welldrawn like an elegant underground thrill ride mixed with raw emotion and grief.

The prose is rich and speculative without ever feeling overdone. Maryk leans into lush descriptions when Greta is voyaging, and the contrast with her everyday life makes those sections pop. There were minor lulls, mostly in the middle when the book shifts viewpoints, but overall the style supports the eerie, emotional tone well. The character work on Greta was strong her grief fueled risk taking felt believable and grounded. Secondary pov chapters added context, though some felt less fleshed out compared to Greta’s journey. The episodic structure sometimes made momentum feel uneven, but the concept stayed compelling.

I really wanted to love this book. The premise? Incredible. A secret society where you can relive the final moments of someone’s life through the objects they died holding? OMG - yes, in every way!!

But omg Greta - I just didn't care at all what happened to her. .The romance felt forced. There was like zero chemistryand the dialogue didn’t help but I kept reading thru to the end and hated the ending which was especially disappointing.There was no freaking explanation of the stakes or consequences it built up.

Michelle Maryk’s debut novel is an atmospheric, genre-defying journey through grief, addiction, and the seductive wounds of death. Although the theme has a darker vibe than I would typically select, I enjoyed the addictive dance between grief and the promise of transcendence. It is one of the best speculative fiction books I have read, and I would definitely recommend it to readers drawn to psychologically complex worlds, ethically grey spectral thrills, and emotional ambiguity.

The formatting on Kindle is so bad, which made it really hard to focus on the book.

I liked the story well enough, but the writing left a lot to be desired for me.

Thank you NetGalley & Hyperion for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for a review.

My rating would be 2.5/5

The Found Object Society is a story about Greta Davenport, a woman who’s lived through the death of her parents and continues to grieve the choices she made 20 years later. The book follows her through her journey with the Found Object Society, where she is able to live through the deaths of individuals through the objects they last held.

Some things that were great about the book:

- the different stories that were incorporated into the plot through each persons death/voyage were so fun to read

- the different time periods felt really nostalgic

- the way Greta would grieve in her ways felt very real. Wanting to simultaneously erase an event from your memory but also punish yourself with it to feel something. That really struck me.

Other things that were not so great:

- the authors attempt to comment on race was so odd. if you’re going to talk about racism there’s a better way to do it than to just reference to Ezra’s blackness twice. it felt really weird to read Greta talk about being in a “white as white as it gets” newspaper…like she is an upper class white woman, what exactly about this newspaper column bothers her? It’s not like she was some sort of activist or even an ally, she was just a rich privileged white woman as seen through her actions with her drivers. That bit about race just felt unnecessary because it wasn’t done well

- Greta & Ezra’s relationship lacked chemistry. As much as I wanted to see it work it just felt so bleh. It didn’t make sense to me that they fell in love within a week over the society’s antics. Like yes they shared a trauma bond but honestly all they did was talk about death & be intimate with each other. It felt like they didn’t have anything else going and that those two things were not enough to be in love and again like there was no chemistry at all. Also the way they met was ridiculous and made me cringe.

- The ending felt rushed and didn’t really explain anything. the ending was actually a little confusing. Miranda saying she’s going to put Greta out of her misery & that she can’t exist in two places? It didn’t make sense like yes I know she’s dying but I just didn’t understand how & why anything was happening. Ezra showing up at her voyage didn’t make sense either. Greta saying no to Bridget was so confusing because didn’t she kill her parents anyway????? Like either she was just stuck in the past or she just died and that was a dream but the author literally did not explain anything it felt so unsatisfying to finish the book.

And then Lisbeth getting an invitation at the end and how Miranda mentioned the paradox / complicated voyage. UGH. Like it felt so unresolved at the end I was not happy with it at all especially because they built up so much suspense around Greta’s last voyage.


For a debut novel Michelle Maryk did great, but she definitely needs to work on her plot lines/endings a little more to be successful in the future.

Last thing, I think it’s so funny that she’s swedish and she was making fun of that swedish actress in one of the voyages hahaha

4/10.

I received early access to this book on Netgalley.

The Found Object Society by Michelle Maryk is a speculative suspense novel following Greta Davenport after she is contacted by the titular society and invited to join other extremely wealthy people who are running from their pasts by indulging in "voyages," experiences of inhabiting the body of someone who died a traumatic death in the days or weeks leading up to that death. I was intrigued by this premise and excited to see where it was taken by the story, but ended up not feeling that the prose or characters lived up to the premise. The writing was very breezy and readable, but devoid of any of the elevated diction that I feel would better have served the setting and premise. I'm told how incredibly mysterious, intriguing, and enigmatic the society is, but I was never really made to feel it. I consistently did not enjoy the dialogue and did not engage very strongly with any character's voices. One exception is the story of Lassiter, whose deeply disturbing point of view and story effectively got under my skin in the way a good thriller does. It made me wish the rest of the book was more of a thriller, rather than a speculative novel, because I never felt that the latter was executed in a compelling way. Greta is an out-of-touch, super-rich woman whose perspective we follow throughout the book. She is someone I never related to, or wanted to root for, which is fine, but when an unrelatable/selfish character is the PoV I like to see more over-the-top aspects of the characters personality or situation to be compelled by. However, it felt like most of the book treated Greta like a relatable protagonist, rather than leaning into her role as an example of how sick people become when they have that much money. The result is that I found Greta a very bland character to follow, even through a plot that had a lot of aspects I was interested in. The plot was fairly strong, but I felt that the ending missed the mark. This one wasn't for me, but I might still recommend it to readers who enjoy fast-paced contemporary speculative stories with more colloquial prose.

NetGalley Reviews

The Lost Object Society seems to take the phrase “I’ve lost someone” and stretch it into an allegory of emotional disconnection, grief, and the ache that follows the death of a loved one. The theme is clever and the feeling of “lostness” (people, self, time) is present throughout. The story has something to say about what happens when you try to sidestep pain rather than confront it, leaning into vices like sex, substance use, and emotional detachment as a way to create distance from the person or thing you’ve “lost”.

The plot and pacing are major strengths here. I felt like the novel moved quickly and the themes are present enough where I wanted to stick around to see what it was all leading to. Unfortunately, the writing itself doesn’t rise to the level of the ideas it wants to explore. Dialogue often feels unnatural, with the main character Greta using cringeworthy phrases like “doodads,” “gobbledygook,” and “high school steadies”. Greta talks about her Mercedes as a “Merc” and it just feels jarring and distracting. She’s supposed to be a hot, rich, 40-year-old and her inner monologue feels very “boomer”.

The repeated mention of a $500k payment to the Society is also hard to ignore, especially because it doesn’t seem to serve the story meaningfully. We’re already aware the main characters move in elite, wealthy circles so the emphasis on this astronomical figure feels unnecessary. If this group is meant to explore collective grief or healing, making it only accessible to the ultra-rich feels tonally dissonant and undercuts the emotional weight the book is trying to deliver. Why would only the elite be given the chance for redemption on a major loss?

Structurally, The Lost Object Society reads more like a screenplay than a fully fleshed-out novel. Descriptions of settings are thin, inner monologues lack depth, and in the final pages I found myself completely lost. The ending leaves more confusion than closure, and not in a deliberate, thought-provoking way.

Ultimately, there’s a compelling story here and I’m very impressed that it is a debut novel. The themes resonate, and the pacing keeps things moving, but the execution in character voice, dialogue, and worldbuilding leaves some to be desired.

There’s so much typos and misspellings in this book. The paragraphs aren’t organized. The chapters aren’t even organized as well. The plot was meh like average.

The Found Object Society by Michelle Maryk unfortunately wasn’t the right fit for me. I ended up DNF’ing the novel after a few chapters in, as both the writing style and main character, Greta Davenport, didn’t resonate with me. However, the writing itself was easy to follow but lacked the depth and sophistication I was hoping for. It read more as a screenplay rather than a novel at times, with a rambling quality that made it feel unpolished. Greta’s character, in particular, came across as too stereotypical for my tastes, like the classic “misunderstood and emotionally blocked” heroine from a Hallmark-style movie. I really wanted to feel her, but her actions and dialogue didn’t feel natural or emotionally grounded. For example, the way Greta and her ex, Ryan, were communicating on text felt heavily scripted and awkward to read. I struggled to understand their dynamic. Nevertheless, I still think the concept is a standout and very unique. The idea of a secret society being able to relive deaths is really intriguing, and I had high hopes for where it might go. However, I think the story will still connect to readers who enjoy surreal, cinematic storytelling and character-driven narratives. It wasn’t a story for me.