The Lost

The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst, 350 pages

For a great plot synopsis, see Krista's review: here.

The Lost has three fairly distinct acts, with (sadly) each one being slightly worse than the last. It starts out very strongly, with a legitimately creepy tone and an interesting setting. It's hard to pull off creepy - especially for extended lengths of time - and The Lost does the best job of it that I've seen recently. It changes pretty quickly to a survival story - well written, and bringing more complexity to the characters - but the transition is a bit jarring. It would have been amazing to maintain the creepy atmosphere while moving into survival territory, but it... doesn't. Eventually the narrative changes again (though when and how is spoiler-y). While it's categorized as an adult novel, the author's YA roots show through pretty plainly - there's only three male characters with any real story relevance, and two of them are over-the-top handsome men with (inexplicable?) crushes on the main character.

I should emphasize that I really did like the book, even in the final act. It just lost (pun intended) a lot of its impact as it went on.