Review: The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst

Title: The Lost (The Lost #1)
Author: Sarah Beth Durst
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Release date: May 27th 2014
Source: Netgalley
Format: eARC

Rating: 3.5/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

It was only meant to be a brief detour. But then Lauren finds herself trapped in a town called Lost on the edge of a desert, filled with things abandoned, broken and thrown away. And when she tries to escape, impassible dust storms and something unexplainable lead her back to Lost again and again. The residents she meets there tell her she's going to have to figure out just what she's missing—and what she's running from—before she can leave. So now Lauren's on a new search for a purpose and a destiny. And maybe, just maybe, she'll be found….

Against the backdrop of this desolate and mystical town, Sarah Beth Durst writes an arresting, fantastical novel of one woman's impossible journey…and her quest to find her fate. 

The Lost is an adult book that´s a little peculiar, bizarre and sometimes a little disorienting and the first part of the book is somewhat confusing and didn´t know to where the story was going, but once I get used to what happens in the town of Lost, I  really enjoyed this book.

Lauren is a woman in her late twenties, she´s lost because she fears the diagnosis of her mother, since apparently her illness may have returned and instead of facing it, she decides to drive out of town aimlessly for hours until she gets to the town of Lost, once there she can´t leave no matter what she does. The people living there is very strange and they tell her that she must wait for "the missing man", because he will explain everything she needs to know, but when she meet him things doesn´t go as expected and she is trapped in The Lost and several of the residents are somewhat hostile toward her but she finds help in the enigmatic and handsome Peter and little Claire.

The story is told from the point of view of Lauren, she is a woman that´s not happy with her life at the time, and having a job she hates and her mother might be sick, which terrifies her, so while she´s trying to escape her life she ends up in Lost. Peter is her love interest, he is the "finder" of the town and usually speaks citing books and he doesn´t gives a direct answer, but he´s a great help to her and help her to adjust to her new reality. Claire is another important character, she´s a 6 year old girl that carries a knife all the time and is something like a guide and friend of Lauren.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Lost, but it took me a while to understand the plot, because that world is very strange, weird , creepy and sometimes it feels a little bit like Wonderland, but it did catch my interest and I can not wait to read the next book in the trilogy.