Customer Reviews

Lost Boy Lost Girl

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Lost boy lost girl was a great book in my opinion. To be warned it does start off strange and all over the place in different views but if you ever read a peter straub novel it makes sense and you wouldn't expect anything different. Its a book that defently has creativity and keeps you reading. I was alittle dissapointed with the ending cause i felt it could of been longer but i guess the whole point is to keep you hanging and make sure your imagination is working. Its like your asked to draw your own conclusion what happened to the lost boy lost girl. I defently would recommend it thought. Im addicted to peter straub's books now. I still love mystery i could defently read that one again.

Though I've had problems with his novels in the past, with his sixteenth (winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker award for best novel), Peter Straub has brought me back into the fold. Any writer who can combine all the best elements of mystery, horror, haunted house, serial killer, and literary fiction into an emotional rollercoaster with a heart, like lost boy lost girl, deserves as wide a readership as he can get.

When his sister-in-law dies "without warning" (which he finds is a euphemism for suicide), bestselling horror novelist Tim Underhill (Straub doppelganger and recurring character along with Tom Pasmore of the recent "Blue Rose" novels Koko, Mystery, and The Throat) flies back home to Millhaven, Ill. to be with his brother, Philip, and 15-year-old nephew, Mark. Not long after Tim returns home, he gets a frantic call from Philip with the news that Mark has disappeared. And evidence points to the idea that the long-empty house at 3323 North Michigan Avenue once owned by serial killer Joseph Kalendar may have had something to do with both.

Ever since Julia, Peter Straub has joined the ranks of subtle horror, patterning himself after the writings of masters like Henry James while retaining his own modern sensibilities. lost boy lost girl represents the peak of his craft's development. It takes after such supernatural thrillers as The Turn of the Screw while remaining firmly in the present day.

While telling an essentially linear story, Straub jumps back and forth from past to present and from one point of view to another. Tim Underhill is the central character but the emotional core lies in young Mark, whose life is the most affected by the events in the story. It is also he whose actions most affect the other characters as he explores the house (which he believes was responsible for his mother's suicide) and finds some unexpected contents that will change his life forever.

Straub uses many varying methods to tell his story: second-hand rememberance as Mark's best friend Jimbo talks to the police and Tim, Tim's journal kept during the period, third-person narration (both Tim and omniscient), and first-person non-journal narration from Tim's point of view. Yet, he somehow manages to make it all flow into a coherent narrative that any genre fan will love to dive into. lost boy lost girl is proof that one of the legends of the horror genre is not content to rest on his laurels, still choosing to develop his writing and remain deserving of his title.

Peter Straub is an outstanding writer. He simply can't write a bad book. He doesn't have it in him. However, like the rest of us mortals, I think sometimes he just gets tired, and can't rise to the level of master of horror that he nearly always obtains. A book like "Lost Boy, Lost Girl" is the result of Peter Straub on an off day. It's a good book; but not excellent like "Koko" or "Floating Dragon".

The plot jumps a bit -- some things are not explained as well as they should be. Again, we have a "haunted" house; I wish sometimes he would move beyond this metaphor. We have a few character types that we have seen before as well; for example, here in this book we have another "Davey".

Yet this book is still a million times better than most of the other horror novels on the shelf these days. Read it, but don't expect TOO much. It's very light.

Good idea, lots of potential but it reads like an outline, a first draft. It was like eating chinese food. Needed a little more depth. The story needed a strong or stronger bond between Underhill and the boy Mark to of made it work.

This is storytelling at its best. Very few authors can carry off this kind of material, but Peter Straub does, and does it with great wit and style. You'll find yourself literally pulled into this great book. The premise of the novel is great, but even greater is Straub's execution of the material. When you hear people talk about page turner, this is what they're speaking of.

Als recommended: BARK OF THE DOGWOOD by J.T. McCrae

Lost Boy, Lost Girl is a chilling tale and a suspense-filled page turner. This is one of the real scary ones!! A MUST READ!!

I've neve understood why Peter Straub is labeled and
always place in the horror section. He has written some
damn fine mysteries. And this book is a continuation of one of these characters.

This book is really a little bit of everything, but suspense covers it best.

I enjoyed this book on a number of levels. I read it in one sitting because I was really drawn right into the story. I think
Straub's strong point has always been his characters and this one does not disappoint.

The Story, in short is this. Tim Underhill's sister in law passes
away. He goes back home for the funeral. His nephew goes missing and Tim does what he can to find him. What he finds is not quite
something he can explain to his brother.

Very entertaining read.

Mr. Straub has for many years been a master of Horror . Famous for books like "Ghost Story" and "Black House" he has produced here what I would call a masterpiece of horror and terror.Written from the point of view of three characters it gives the story a depth not found in conventional stories.The book slowly draws you in and it becomes hard to put it down.The book is really about a hanted house and it is how it is hanted and how it affects the characters that really draws you in.I have read alot of horror in my life . This book rates as one of my favorite.Mr. Staub is a master storyteller and his book is a must for any horror fan.After you read this try his book "Ghost Story",it is a great read too.

What do writers do? They remake the world as they see it, telling a lie so convincing that for a while -- or maybe forever -- we believe that it is the truth.
Straub's "lost boy lost girl" is a perfect example of this. It's the shortest book Straub has written in years -- just short of 300 pages -and yet it is at once his most unnerving and most poignant novel. And it gives a whole new meaning to the critic's cliche about a book "working on different levels."
Tim Underhill, a character who has appeared in several of Straub's other novels, including "Mystery" and "Koko," is returning to his hometown of Millhaven, Wisconsin. His sister-in-law has just died (only later does Tim realize that she committed suicide), and he is concerned about the well-being of his 15-year-old nephew, Mark.
That concern takes on an even greater urgency, when Tim learns that Millhaven is being plagued by a serial killer whose victims are all teen-aged boys.
(...)
Straub has incorporated into this short tale elements of just about every kind of thriller -- serial killer, ghost story, haunted house, the great detective, the master criminal, crimes of the past affecting the present -- and the sense of reality within this novel keeps shifting with subtle and disquieting shudders, as the atmosphere of the scenes fluctuate and point of view changes.
One can read "lost boy lost girl" as a dark fantasy, and come away from it completely satisfied. But that's not the very simple and tragic story really being told in "lost boy lost girl."
At one point, one character reacts to the fantastic aspects of this story by saying, "Yeah, that happens all the time. In books, maybe."
To which Tim Underhill, the novelist, replies, "Exactly."
And that's when you realize that what you've been reading maybe is not what you thought it was, that just as Mark Underhill tries to deal with his mother's suicide by delving into what might be a haunted house, so does his uncle try to create a story that relieves, or at least forestalls, the real horror of what has been going on in the city of Millhaven.
That's also when you realize that, in "lost boy lost girl," Peter Straub has written a masterpiece to rival his classic "Ghost Story."

At first i was drawn into Peter Straub's latest novel. I think all those who have read it will say that it has a very gripping rising action. I was completely in another world while i was reading it. The book gets you ready for some kind of huge, scary, mind blowing climax in the story. But then it just, well, disappoints you. And you basically end up with nothing more at the end of the book than you had in the middle. I do however have to say that it was well written, that is to say i liked his writeing style. So i will most likely read more of his work, but as for Lost Boy Lost Girl, i have to say 3 stars.