‘With Getting Lost, Annie Ernaux goes for broke. The bed, the site of her pleasure, is to her what the gaming table is to the gambler, the bottle to the alcoholic, the syringe to the addict. The nexus of all danger. The goal is not, as she seems to believe and tries to make us believe, the necessity of passion: it is in reality only a pretext for her to risk her life.’

— Martine de Rabaudy, L'Express

‘When I open one of [Ernaux's] books, I feel the same sense of confidence and curiosity that Simone de Beauvoir or Françoise Giroud, both so different, give me: I know that I won't want to skip a single paragraph, while at the same time I sense a constant danger ... [Getting Lost] is breathless, violent, repetitive, precarious, clandestine.’

— François Nourissier, Le Figaro Magazine

‘[An] example of an autopsy of love like few exist. ... This diary of an obsession and mutual possession, written in direct, almost telegraphic language, provokes a paralysis in the reader, as they are compelled by the very brevity of the scene to imagine it, to recreate it.’

— Marie-Louise Roubaud, La dépêche du Midi

‘Even in its rawest form, Annie Ernaux's style is recognisable, dry, precise, impeccable, making this text an exceptional document, an everyday and pitiless tale, an intimate diary of alienation, as fascinating as the minutes of a trial, a frightening archive of the misery of an era.’

— Josyane Savigneau, Le Monde

‘From the very first lines, we feel ourselves, like her, caught up in the vertigo of waiting, obsessed by the telephone that never rings, time that passes too quickly and the meetings that become less frequent. Love, death and literature are constantly intertwined in this story that plunges us into the intimacy of a couple, without ever giving us the impression of being voyeurs.’

— Pascale Frey, ELLE