Oh wow. I did love this one. Though a library is central to the story, I loved the fact instead of hearing about famous books you would know, we get to know about stories the main character Martha used to write until she was a teenager. I would have loved if at the end Patrick had put all of the stories together for us to read, or even had a companion novel. The stories are sad and at times dark fairy tales. You get why they were when you read more about Martha’s family and how she grew up. I felt for Martha and for her life that she seemed to have given up on for 15 years before she got “found.”
“The Library of Lost and Found” follows almost middle aged Martha Storm. It’s been 5 years since her parents death, but 15 years since she returned home to take care of them. Since that time, Martha has been in a frozen state. She gave up a fiancée to take care of her parents, and now with no one else, she has taken on projects and tasks for people who live in her village. Until one day a book that has her name in it, and stories that she used to tell to her long gone grandmother arrives. Martha starts investigating the origins of the book and in the end finds out more than she imagined. The story shifts back and forth between the 1970s and present day following Martha and her long dead mother, Betty.
I loved Martha, her storyline, and the fact that the author chose to have Martha just moving forward and not looking back. I felt for her throughout the book.
I also loved that we get to follow Martha’s mother Betty as well. You eventually get to the secret she had been holding onto (I guessed it) and then the choices she made and why. I felt for her. I felt for Martha. Heck, I felt in the end for all of them. Family is a complicated mess of a thing.
The writing was great and I loved the little stories within that we get to read.
The flow of the book was great and I loved the little reveals we get as we go along.
The ending I thought was great. We don’t know what comes next, but we know we got a stronger Martha in the end.
