Lost in the Moment and Found

Antsy wasn't safe in her own home -- in her own bedroom -- so she ran. Down the street and around the corner and through the door of a welcoming-looking thrift shop, where she thought she might be able to call her grandmother for help. Instead, she found herself in The Shop Where Lost Things Go, an impossible jumble of shelves full of objects, all lost by their owners. And among the shelves are Doors, all leading to other worlds. Antsy can open these Doors and go through, leaving them propped open so she can return to the Shop. An old woman and a talking magpie are the Shop's proprietors, and they make her welcome, teaching her the ways of this strange but comforting world and the markets that often appear through the Doors. However, show more all magic has a price -- and Antsy doesn't even know, yet, what she might be paying.

This is a heart-wrenching story of innocence and childhood lost, even more explicitly so than many of the other Wayward Children stories which focus on trauma and loss. It's also lovely and comforting in many ways. It's one of the relatively stand-alone volumes of the series, in that it explores Antsy's life before she reaches the safety of Miss West's, but I don't know that I would suggest it as an entry point to the series. Highly recommended to fans, though! show less

Antsy's life is perfect for the first few years - until her father dies, and her mother remarries. Antsy's new stepfather Tyler unsettles her, though she can't put her finger on why. When he comes into her room one night, she runs away, and, looking for a phone, goes into a shop where "be sure" is written over the door. The shop is a nexus; from there, Doors open into countless other worlds, and old Vineta and Hudson the talking magpie welcome Antsy in. What they don't explain, however, is that every Door Antsy opens costs her - time. Antsy ages several years in just two, and it's a note and the discovery of a diary that alerts her to Vineta and Hudson's betrayal. Furious, she leaves - and finds herself back in her own world. There's show more more denouement here than in many of the Wayward Children books (which is to say, still not much, but some): Antsy sees her mother and young sister, with the vile Tyler out of the picture; and a staticky feeling guides her to find lost things and reunite them with their owners. Finally, Antsy guides herself to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children.

My new second-favorite in this series (after In An Absent Dream).

Quotes

...and then she talked to her the way adults talked to children when they wanted them to agree to something that wasn't ever a question, not really. (12)

She was off-balance and out of sorts, and she wasn't in the mood for magic. (51)

The mind is bad at holding on to terror... (77)

"So not all children need Doors?"
...
"No. Only the ones who aren't made right for the worlds where they started out need Doors. All children may want them - who doesn't want a grand adventure? But needing and wanting aren't the same, and the Doors can see the difference. Some children need to escape from places that will only hurt them, or grind them away until they're nothing. And some children need to go somewhere else if they're ever going to grow into the people they were meant to be. The Doors choose carefully." (91)

...and she didn't see anything odd about that, accepting it with the calm, unwavering serenity of a child who was already under too much pressure to notice when something was wrong. (96)

This is the place where all things are found, but what is lost here is truly lost forever. (123)

"They needed to know because a choice you make without knowing the consequences isn't any choice at all!" (132) show less

8th in the Wayward Children series of novellas, and sadly, the first in the series that didn't work very well for me.

This has been one of my favorite series in recent years. It's built around the idea that children who travel through portals to fantasy worlds -- Alice going to Wonderland, or the Pevensies to Narnia -- are given that opportunity in order to escape some trauma they face in this world, or in order to learn some important lesson that this world cannot teach them. The Doors do not appear to just any child.

And when those children return to this world, they often have difficulty adjusting to the loss of what had seemed a perfect place. That's where the Home for Wayward Children comes in. It's a boarding school that provides show more support and a sort of emotional detox for such children, though parents are generally told that the school is helping children to get over their "delusions" of having been to another world.

Each book in the series is the story of one of the Wayward Children in some other world, with varying amounts of the story set at the Home among the other residents.

This one is the story of Antionette -- "Antsy" -- who is facing the most severe trauma the series has yet presented, a stepfather who is grooming and gaslighting her in preparation for inevitable sexual abuse. She runs away from home before anything truly horrific happens, and travels through a Door to a world that seems to offer the safe haven she needs.

There are things to admire in this book. As ever, McGuire remembers what it's like to be a child, and writes from a child's point of view extraordinarily well. The opening chapters, in which Antsy struggles to understand why she is so uncomfortable around her new stepfather, are powerful. And the things that happen to Antsy on the other side of the Door are a fine example of how fantasy can be used to dig more deeply into common metaphors by literalizing them.

But with the exception of the stepfather, none of the supporting characters ever come to life. The story isn't very compelling, and it becomes clear why in the final pages, when Antsy reaches a new destination; that arrival feels more like the starting point of the story than like the end. The book is less a complete novella than it is the introductory chapters of a full-length novel. (And those final pages, by the way, won't mean much to readers unfamiliar with the series; this is not a stand-alone installment in the series, and definitely not the place to enter it.)

I hate to criticize the book, because it's clearly a very personal story for McGuire. She dedicates the book to "the child I was," apologizing that she "didn't run soon enough," and provides an author's note/trigger warning that earlier volumes in the series don't have.

Perhaps McGuire (or her editor?) felt that the series was so firmly established at novella length that her readers wouldn't want a Wayward Children novel, but there is so clearly more of Antsy's story waiting to be told that I wish she'd been willing to break format to tell the whole story in one book. show less

Another bittersweet entry in the Wayward Children series. This one is a mix of the heaviness of dealing with a really tough, very real topic (cw: childhood abuse, hints of intent of worse abuse - though thankfully it's not depicted in detail) with the extra-magical nexus of doorways and lost and found shop. In this book our heroine can access many doors and also helps to run a very intriguing shop where lost things from all worlds go. I enjoyed the atmosphere, but the beginning and end of this book are fairly sad.

As usual McGuire has created more fascinating worlds and more likeable, relatable characters. Antsy's experience with her step father had me remembering my own experiences with my dad's girlfriend as a young kid, and while my show more story is nowhere near the same, it brought back a weird sort of reflective hurt that some of the other entries in this series haven't done for me.

My only "complaint" is that I would have liked to see even more worlds and magic. But I guess I'll just have to wait for the next one! show less

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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This ended up being one of those books that I could say almost nothing about or could just as easily have said far too much about. It took me a week and a half just to figure out—I hope—the way to strike the balance.

WHAT'S LOST IN THE MOMENT AND FOUND ABOUT?
Antoinette (known as Antsy) is a little girl whose life is shattered when her father dies unexpectedly. Her mother quickly remarries for security and her stepfather is the stuff of nightmares. He dismantles her idyllic-sounding childhood, almost removing her from the family. When darker (much darker) things loom, Antsy runs away.

Naturally—well, supernaturally—as this is a Wayward Children book, she's soon presented with show more a Door. She steps through it, as sure as someone who isn't even ten can be. And enters a shop. Unusually for this series, she's not in a new world—but a shop. The Shop Where the Lost Things Go to be precise.

The shop is managed by an old woman named Vineta and a very large (and talking) magpie named Hudson. In addition to the Shop being the place that Lost Things go—those that are needed by their owners can come be retrieved. There is a Door in the Shop that Antsy can open to other worlds (Antsy's door, and that of those coming to Find something, appears in a different location)—there's never any telling what world will be on the other side of the Door. If it looks appealing, Vineta and Antsy will go through and purchase some things to sell in the Shop (and feed themselves), otherwise Antsy will close the door and try again.

At some point, Antsy begins finding ominous notes trying to tell her something—will she figure out what the notes are trying to tell her in time?

WORLDBUILDING
One of the more entertaining things—for me, anyway—about this series is hearing about worlds that we don't get to spend time in (or more than a quick glimpse, anyway). Just a brief mention along the way to some other point, and you get to fuel your imagination for a bit. Given this setting—and the way the Shop flits between worlds for Antsy and Vineta to go pick up stock, Lost in the Moment and Found is rife in these glimpses, hints of what else is out there. I had so much fun with that—McGuire's really created a universe for these stories where she can indulge any whim she has for storytelling and it'd work.

But that's not really what I wanted to talk about.

This entry would be a worthwhile read for fans if only for this one thing—we learn more about the Doors and how they work. I'm not going to go into it, obviously, nor am I going to promise that every question you had about the Doors will be answered—actually you'll likely end up with new questions, but they'll be informed questions.

DEPTH OF DARKNESS
On the whole, this series hasn't featured "bad guys"—largely, the antagonists have been people with competing visions for the way things ought to be. People who were trying their best, but who couldn't understand their children (before and/or after their door)—and so on. A lot of people you don't want to be around and you don't want to see have much success as they are, but typically it's possible to see where they're coming from and why they do what they do (as much as you might object to it).

But in this book? There are a minimum of two evil characters. People that need to be stopped, and you sort of wish Toby Daye would make a cameo and do what she does best.

McGuire's painted some bleak circumstances for her Wayward Children—but this seems bleaker (I haven't spent a lot of time reviewing the older books, so I'm prepared to be corrected) and darker than we're used to. There's a period where you can forget that, where it almost feels like Antsy is out for a very long lark and everything will be a fun adventure.

I don't know if this is a turning point and that we'll see more books like this in the years to come. I doubt it—I think this is a story that needed to be told, but we'll be back on more familiar ground—with a more familiar tone—soon.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT LOST IN THE MOMENT AND FOUND?
This is clearly a personal story of McGuire (just read the Author's note that precedes the text) and there's a rawness to the writing that isn't typical for this series (or McGuire, period). But it's oh, so fitting.

I find myself slipping into misconceptions about this series—I enjoy the characters (so many of our protagonists are just loveable), the concept behind the series and West's school, and so on—it's easy to remember the nonsense worlds, the joy that characters frequently experience in finding a Door, going home, or leaving home that you forget that almost everyone goes through a Door from our world to get away from something. When I pause to write something like this or describe the series/a particular novella to someone—all of that comes rushing back. Only to be forgotten again until I start reading the next book.* Antsy's situation is perhaps the most disturbing we've seen—and what she ultimately finds in the shop is equally (but in a very different way) unsettling.

* I hope I'm not alone in that, but I have to assume the rest of you are more careful in your reading/remembering.

The novella is not all dire and troubling—there's a lot of fun to be had as we follow Antsy. The quick excursion to the lost animal department could've filled a novella or two. The reader might see some old friends out of the corner of their eye, too. Most importantly, there is hope. That last line is earned (as we're told time and time again, nothing comes free), and is so reassuring.

Unsurprisingly, I recommend this book—unlike most in the series, I don't think this would serve as a good entry point. It's a good number 8 (these are all novellas, so reading eight of them isn't that big of an investment). It's raw, it's unsettling (at the very least), it's emotional, and it's full of some of McGuire's best prose. I'm sure those who've read 1-2 (or all seven) others don't need me to say this, you've probably already read them. But for everyone else, it's time to start reading these books. show less

Another strong entry in the Wayward Children series. Antsy's situation and journey is compelling. The beginning is an all-too-realistic picture of emotional abuse and grooming, and I'm glad the content warning was included. Once Antsy gets through the door, she's in an intriguing place, and there's just the right amount of foreboding for things to feel a bit uneasy... until the big secret comes out, and it hits with the full force of the thing we should have been paying more attention to. I loved the denouement and Antsy returning back to see her mom and how things ended up with Tyler. Looking forward to seeing Antsy at the school!

Oh, wow. This book. I could not put it down.

I have never read any of Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series, although I've heard a lot about them. This one, though, as a standalone, called to me from the library book shelf, and I am SO glad I grabbed it.

Anytime that I read a book, I read all of it, including the dedication page, author's note, any quotes, etc. that the author includes before the start of the book. And, let me tell you, I am SO glad I did that with this one. The dedication page was absolutely heartbreaking and even more so when I finished the book and went back and read the dedication page again. I was in tears. The Author's Note was absolutely critical in enabling me to brace myself; it's essentially a trigger show more warning, and although I don't have such triggers, I really needed the warning in order to prepare my brain and emotions.

The first 45 or so pages of the 146-page book were difficult to get through. Not because it wasn't interesting or because it was poorly written. On the contrary. Because it was written with such insight and depth of TRUTH -- clearly drawn from personal experience, which made it all the more devastating. There is a palpable feeling of dread through the entire first 45 pages because the reader knows what Antsy doesn't, and it is just such a terrible, terrible feeling to know what is about to happen to this precious little girl. I didn't want to read on, and yet I did. I am not spoiling things by saying that the book blessedly shifts before things can get unbearably awful, because McGuire states in her Author's Note: "Antsy runs. Before anything can actually happen. Antsy runs."

When the book shifts at page 46, it is to a world of fantasy. Antsy has stepped through a door that takes her someplace she has never been. The rest of the book is filled with fantastical and wondrous things, and yet there is something missing. As Antsy spends more time in this other world, she gradually learns the truth behind this world. There is a price to pay for everything, and she eventually learns what price she has been paying for being in her safe haven. Does she still want to go back home? Or does she not? *Can* she go back home? And, if she does, what will be waiting for her there?

This book hit me so hard. I felt everything profoundly. The loss of childhood innocence is an incredibly sad thing, and yet the book ends with a glimmer of hope. Seanan McGuire, this book destroyed me, but in the most beautiful way. I am forever a fan and look forward to going back and reading all your books. show less