It's hard for Carol to admit her failings. Unhappy in her marriage and with a teenage daughter who will barely converse with her, she feels trapped. So she puts pen to paper; well, it seems less daunting than airing her thoughts aloud. She isn't expecting anyone to read her letters, so she doesn't address them. Instead, she marks them with a smiley face and pops them in the post box. Albert's retirement day at Royal Mail looms and he's given one final task; organise the 'lost letters' that have been piling up in a room behind the sorting machine. Amongst the letters addressed to Santa, he arrives at one with a smiley face drawn in place of an address. Albert opens the letter, unaware that in doing so his world would never be the same again.
Tom Winter is a British writer living in Berlin. Lost & Found is his first novel.
I sure hope he will write more because I have been laughing a lot while reading this book. How is it that someone elses misery can be so entertaining? The style in which this book is written does help a lot.
Carol is unhappy in her marriage and not so happy with her daughter either. She is about to leave her husband when things start to happen making it kind of a bad moment to actually leave. But that does not change anything in the way she feels so she writes them down. It is interesting to see how this develops. She really is having a fight with herself not being sure what and how. I really felt sorry for her how trapped she was and was looking for a way out there but there simply was not a way out was acceptable.
Albert is easy to love, I could see him rummaging trough the mail and doing his thing. I really wanted to take care of him and visit him so he had company. The way the manager was acting was so manager like. A lot of situation in the story are kept small but are actually big social problems. Like Albert having to retire even though he does not want to, being home all alone and not having someone to look after him. In the book it looks like nothing but it is a big problem and only getting bigger. Same with Carol and her feelings and how she deals with them. The story makes you think about situations like that, what I would do or how I would feel. So many views on loneliness with so much humor. This was a book I have been looking forward to reading since the beginning of the year and it was sure worth the wait.
Lost and Found
Author: Tom Winter
Publisher: Corsair
Pages: 314
Format: Paperback
ISBN-10: 1472101618
ISBN-13: 9781472101617
Corsair: Hardcover | Paperback
4 reacties
Write reactiesYay. Good to see that you loved this as well. There are some serious topics but all brought in an almost lighthearted way.
ReplyThis sounds good Ciska!
ReplyAdding to my reading list! Sounds like a good one. Thanks for the review! Your blog is great.
ReplyThanks for the visit Alana :)
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