Helen Clapp is a professor of Physics at MIT. When she is not working on ground breaking projects in her field, she's working as a single mother to her eight year old son, Jack. In the middle of her busy life, one day she randomly receives a text message from her old Harvard roommate, Charlie. What's strange about this interaction isn't the fact that she hadn't spoke to Charlie in years, but the fact that Charlie had died a few days prior to when Helen received the text. This chance encounter shakes Helen, causing her to reflect upon her past, present, and future.

I have to say this definitely NOT a book for everyone. Much like Elif Bautman's The Idiot (a novel in which I completely adored), I think most readers will either love or hate this book due to the fact that it interweaves an extremely character driven plot with a very niche discipline. I wouldn't particularly call this book a difficult read, but it does include a lot of scientific jargon that could be off-putting to some readers. Personally, I love books that really make me think a little outside of my comfort zone, so when I read that this book was a bit "brainy" and eccentric in execution, I was PUMPED.

Anyway, I pretty much adored everything about this book (with the minor exception of the plot twist which was predictable). I loved learning about Helen's life in college and her life in the present day. I loved reading about her history with Neel and about the complexities of their working relationship with each other. I loved learning about Charlie's life and family, as well as her battles with her disease and beyond. But honestly, what I loved most about this book has nothing to do with the plot, but with how seamlessly Freudenberger was able to interweave all of the narratives together. I felt like she did an excellent job of conveying genuine emotions in characters that would stereotypically read as cold people who were wrapped up in their work. I was also COMPLETELY shocked when I read Freudenberger's Acknowledgement page where she stated that she did not have any scientific background prior to her research for Lost and Wanted. I cannot imagine the amount of time and energy that she must have dedicated to crafting such a gorgeous novel. ( )

While it's well written, it's another story that didn't grab my attention and found it somewhat lackluster. Not much more to say. ( )

The science here is cosmic, bleeding into philosophy, which makes for deliberate reading - there is no rushing through this book. It is difficult, in a way, but not heavy. The physicists love their work, and it is explained in almost loving detail.
The people in Helen's world are also well loved, and relatable, thus complex.
See more of my thoughts here https://afewmorethings.com/reading/lost-and-wanted/
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This author seems to be popular among readers who enjoy the journey. I am a destination person instead, and I found this book unsatisfying.

When the audiobook app I was using to listen to this broke, I was 90% done with the book, and at that point really didn't care enough to make the app work to finish it. By that point of the book, I couldn't really tell you what the storyline was. or what the book was about. The interesting part of the story is that the main character is a physicist, and her best friend (who she hadn't spoken to in a long time) dies, and she keeps getting messages from her dead friend's phone. The blurb leads the reader to believe that this is a ghost story, and that the physicist is going to have some sort of conflict between her belief in science and the evidence of ghosts right in front of her. But that "storyline" is just a very teeny percentage of the book - the vast majority of the book is flashbacks to the physicist's relationship with her best friend and her past boyfriend, and tedious minutiae of daily life as the best friend's husband and daughter move into her basement apartment. I found the book really frustrating because I could never tell where any of it was going. The characters are all interesting and well-written, which is the only reason I stuck with it so long. I just couldn't tell why the book spent so long dwelling on all of the main character's past relationships instead of focusing on the mystery of where the text messages were coming from. ( )