by GGGinny

What I drank: Plenty of sauvignon blanc. I’ve had a busy week and opened this bottle to drink with a friend and finished it after she left.

Goodreads Overview:

A young girl discovers an infinite variety of worlds in this standalone tale in the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found.

Welcome to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go.

If you ever lost a sock, you’ll find it here.
If you ever wondered about favorite toy from childhood… it’s probably sitting on a shelf in the back.
And the headphones that you swore that this time you’d keep safe? You guessed it….

Antoinette has lost her father. Metaphorically. He’s not in the shop, and she’ll never see him again. But when Antsy finds herself lost (literally, this time), she finds that however many doors open for her, leaving the Shop for good might not be as simple as it sounds.

And stepping through those doors exacts a price.

Lost in the Moment and Found tells us that childhood and innocence, once lost, can never be found.

Drunk Overview: Antsy (short for Antoinette) runs away from home after her step-father makes it clear her Mom won’t believe her (over relatively small things) and then approaches her at night to let her know he knows that. She finds the shop of lost things, which is a liminal space between worlds, where she can open any doors that appear to unknown adventures.

Drunk Thoughts: The first thing to know is that I’m writing this review after re-reading the book.

• I am in love with the way elements of this book changed with a reread.
• But I am also in awe of how well Seanan McGuire writes children’s voices.
• I’m not going to name names but I recently read a book where that was not the case and it was endlessly frustrating.
• But this book does a great job of writing from a younger perspective. Everything feels like it’s bigger, from ceramic plates vs plastic ones.
• And the opening of this book is heartbreaking and then terrifying.
• I remember how I felt when Antsy’s stepfather started with small lies to get Antsy to feel like her mother wasn’t on her side.
• I’m going to say here, McGuire puts a trigger warning at the beginning of the book, letting you know that Antsy runs before the worst.
• Even knowing that, I remember my heart being in my throat for this poor girl who has dealt with so much change in so short a time.
• At the same point, I do feel this sense of empathy for the mother who, in making what seemed like the right decision for her, didn’t have the attention span or knowledge to make it clear that it wasn’t the right decision for Antsy.
• Okay, gonna skip ahead a little bit.
• My only problem with this book was how the time skips happened. While we got to see Antsy as she grew up in this shop, I would have loved a few vignettes about those experiences.
• That being said, this shop sounds so fucking cool!
• Antsy’s second experience with a DOOR sounded fucking magical. It was the moment in the book that pulled me in and helped me understand why she would be called to/found by the DOOR that found her. And it did a nice job of showing why she would be successful in the shop of lost things.
• Which, honestly, that shop sounded like the coolest place, and I would have loved to stop in there for a day to find something I had lost, like a character who did show up briefly.
• Moving away from the plot, I really like the other main characters in this book. I’m not sure they felt entirely well rounded (I never learned what Vineta did in the back of the shop for instance). But I think as a whole, they really felt like they belonged in the shop.
• Honestly, there’s not much more to say about characters because Ansty, Vineta, and Hudson (who is a large magpie) are really the only people who appear on a regular basis.
• But that suits this story. The Store of Lost things attracts people who are lost, and frankly, even if a lot of people feel that they’re lost, that isn’t the case.
• Which is one of the reasons this book is so interesting, because Antsy decided at the beginning to be lost.
• And it makes you wonder about the other people who decided to be lost.
• I don’t want to get into major spoilers, but that sense of unease from the first part of this book does continue through small foreshadowing.
• the first time I read that, it was easy to dismiss. but during the reread, those moment did hit me more.
• In other words, this is absolutely the kind of book that was worthy of a reread (just like glass onion, I watched it a second time within the week of watching it the first time!, but I digress)
• Ooooh, tangent
• This book does a great job of nodding towards the other worlds in this series. Which makes sense as the first Door that opens a liminal space that then opens to other doors.
• But I really enjoyed the hints of seeing items that belong in the worlds of other characters or seeing those world from a different perspective.
• Just a really fun thing for long-time readers.
• Without going into spoilers, my big question reading this book was “Is it worth it?”
• That goes with there is a slight mystery in this book and it’s interesting watching Antsy get to the point where she wanted to figure it out.
• And then seeing what she does after.
• Because when you uncover a truth, there are so many possible different responses.
• I can’t wait to see the next book in this series.
• Because I love seeing the way each person changes from the world they inhabit, and how the world changes because of them.

What it Pairs With: A really nicely aged scotch. Something that you sip and lingers on your tongue. Something meant to be savored after it’s been functionally lost for years.

Rating: 4.75/5