Main character Laura, who inherits the title of The Keeper of Lost Things, and the enormous task of trying to find their homes, is completely unlikable. She falls apart after determining not to pursue her further education in order to marry and then divorce a jerk, and disappointing her parents who slaved in vain to give her a better life. It is completely unbelievable that the original “Keeper,” Anthony Peardew thought that Laura was the one to inherit his life’s work. As someone who was immediately introduced as seeking antidepressants from multiple sources for unhappiness that she wrought upon herself by making poor life decisions—only to quit therapy as soon as she gets the drugs—I was concerned. But regardless, before Anthony passes, he leaves her his house and all of his belongings.
Thinking Anthony saw something that I did not in Laura, I kept reading. Unfortunately, she only got worse. She repeatedly hid from Sunshine, her new neighbor with Down Syndrome, out of not wanting to explain herself and her actions. Laura proved repeatedly, to be whiny, pampered, and lacking of any self-sufficiency. Without the help of Freddy and Sunshine, I don’t believe she ever would have been able to fulfill Anthony’s wishes. And if the random introduction of her never-before mentioned life-long friend was a last-ditch effort to make me like poor, helpless Laura, it really did not work. I simply rolled my eyes at yet another addition to Laura’s endless character faults and again wished that literally anyone in the book other than her were the main character.
Laura’s romance with Freddy the gardener did not improve matters either. It was nothing but bland and predictable. Perhaps I could have forgiven the sheer formulaic pattern of it all—complete with unspoken feelings, misunderstandings, and even a fist fight with the ex (I literally laughed at this part), etc., —if the story of Eunice and Bomber weren’t running alongside theirs. Eunice was smart, funny, and loyal. Her love and dedication to Bomber, the friend who would never return her feelings, was beautiful and everything one longs for in a friendship. The author’s description of their life together and their shared losses—their dog dying—even brought me to tears at one point, proving that there is a glimmer of hope for the author’s future writing career. However, it became clear to me that it would not be with this book and its main character.
The only thing that was worse than her portrayal of Laura and literally every other story in the book being better than that of hers and the main story, was the author’s ignorant portrayal of Sunshine. I was aghast at the inclusion of the “magical” abilities of Sunshine, a willfully dangerous trope that makes it even harder for persons with disabilities who do not have mysterious and magical ways to feel emotions with touch, or know things that others do not, etc.. As a person with disabilites, I felt that this portrayal and similar ones in books and media, are offensive and a major step back for the understanding of disabilities—something that is greatly needed.
It was a shame, because Sunshine as a character, was easily one of the most interesting before she was cheapened with these magic abilities, something real people with disabilites don't typically have, and the author’s need to give her a reason—other than her worth as a compassionate and sincere character—to be valuable to the book. And if that weren’t enough, the beaten-to-death phrase of “lovely cup of tea,” made it extremely clear that the author could’ve used some sensitivity training or, you know, editing—anything that would have prevented her from using disability as a nothing more than a device to move her plot forward.
And the plot was not so great itself. Anthony, the original keeper of lost things before Laura, began imagining and writing explanations of the lost things. Every single one of these stories, which again are all better and less trite than what we see in the main story, comes inexplicably true. This is never explained, but just accepted. So too, was the existence of Anthony’s deceased wife’s continued inhabitance of the house. After reading this book, I’m still not sure if the author intended this book to be a touching coming into one’s own story a la Under the Tuscon Sun, a ghost story, or a drab romantic comedy. Regardless, the main story reads like a straight-to-dvd movie, complete with ubiquitous plot holes, characters bizarrely revealing their deepest secrets at a dinner party to strangers out of nowhere in order for Laura to get a clue to whom a lost item belonged, and all too convenient happy endings for characters who don’t even deserve them.
So when the author described Laura’s failed writing career—“Laura’s writing had more style than substance. She wrote ‘beautifully,’ but her plot was too ‘quiet’”—I could not help but wonder if Hogan were describing her own past failures to publish. Perhaps that was why she felt the need to throw in a disability with magical powers, past miscarriages, a ghost, a fist fight, a dog or two dying, and every other trope of which she could think. It also begged me to wonder if many of the metaphors and jarring phrases that were included in this book, were added simply to prevent this same “quietness” that the author struggled with in the past.
But all it did, was cause me to read many sentences over again to figure out what the heck was being described. One of these sentences that required a reread was, “But perhaps it would be a woman; a sharp, spiky unfolded paper clip of a woman with black bobbed hair and red lipstick.” Um, what? Not once in my life have I ever thought of someone as “a spiky unfolded paper clip of a woman.” And this sentence was only one of countless odd ones that pepper the book.
Though the short stories and the side stories within this novel show some promise, I will not be reading another one of these author’s books any time soon. In fact, I think I will go back to fantasy writing, with its rich world building, and complex magics—not magics bestowed upon characters merely because the author deemed that they are not worthy enough to be in the story without them.
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