Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Review: The Lost Daughter

The Lost Daughter
By Lucy Ferriss
Berkley Books 2012
380 pages
From my shelves

The Lost Daughter

Brooke O'Connor made a terrible decision as a teenager. But that was a long time ago. Now she has a good life, as a beloved wife and mother. Their family seems happy and secure, so her husband Sean is puzzled at her adamant refusal to consider having a second child. When Brooke's high school boyfriend resurfaces, Sean can't help but wonder what secrets they share. Is Brooke still pining for her first love or is the past finally catching up to Brooke and Alex? 

This was one of those books that was firmly in the middle for me. I was interested in what was going to happen, but I wasn't in love with the characters and I wasn't desperate to read just a few more pages. I picked up this book largely because of Wally Lamb's glowing praise on the front cover. As you know, he is one of my favorite authors, so if something was a win for Mr. Lamb, I thought it would be a great choice for me. I can see a lot of similarities between the writing of Lamb and Ferriss. Both writers write dark stories about the damage of secrets among family and the need for people to make the right choices both for themselves and for the people they love. 

However, I would consistently rate Lamb's characters above the characters here. None of these characters seem to have the ability to talk to each other. They are all going through a lot but instead of discussing it with anyone, they all carry their secrets around for a long, long time. It starts to get obnoxious when you realize that all of the issues could be resolved if people just opened their mouths!

The story is largely predictable. I had deduced what was going on long before Alex or Brooke did. While this is not always a bad thing in a book, in this case it seemed like some serious stupidity (at least on Alex's part) that they didn't figure things out before they did. There are also some points where the details of the plot don't make sense. Things happen in this book in ways that I can't imagine they could ever happen in real life.

Unfortunately, this book is one of those that is interesting enough to keep reading but not engaging enough to stay in your mind after you have finished it. 


  1. Sounds decent for a light read hmm? Not GRAND but not awful ;)

    1. It wasn't terrible - I just didn't love it. And it was a surprisingly weighty read; the cover is really deceiving.