Lost

by John Wilson

9781459811973

60 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 22, 2016

About the author

John Wilson, an ex-geologist and frustrated historian, is the award-winning author of fifty novels and non-fiction books for adults and teens. His passion for history informs everything he writes, from the recreated journal of an officer on Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition to young soldiers experiencing the horrors of the First and Second World Wars and a memoir of his own history. John researches and writes in Lantzville on Vancouver Island. There are many more details in his memoir, Lands of Lost Content, https://www.amazon.com/Lands-Lost-Con...

Reviews

[Patrick Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty cute, for a story for youngsters about shipwrecks, cannibalism, and the mysteries of the North.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is too unbelievable, even for a kid's book. I love everything Franklin Expedition, but eesh. This wasn't very good, sadly. :(

[Sheri Radford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another satisfying entry in this series of novels for reluctant readers.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hi-lo read, reasonably action-packed. Some gruesome details (should appeal to certain middle schoolers) but nothing too gory.

[Amera Dirie · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was a good book i really liked it because it had mystery and was cool to see how they go to the island

[Lo]

This reads like it was written by a very clever 6th grader. I don't know how else to describe it. It gave me flashbacks of middle school, working a shift in the writing lab and struggling to encouragingly say "you have potential, but this is not good writing."

It's clever, fun, engaging, and decently written with no grammatical errors or terrible word choice. Many adult authors writing for adults can't pull that off! On the other hand, it seems written by a person without a basic understanding of how real people talk, how adults behave, and how the world works. This person has literally never heard the advice "show, don't tell." The protagonists seem like kids from another century, with no cell phones, oddly formal speech, and no parental authority figures of any kind (there was briefly one dad, who asked his son permission to come along on a sketchy Arctic adventure? but already knew he'd say no?). It's bizarre to my adult eyes, but might seem great to kids and is a cool intro to the Franklin expedition (with a few fun macabre details).

It's also third in a series, but it's unclear what the first two books are even called. It hardly mattered, since the entire plots were awkwardly narrated by the main characters to each other ("Professor Plum? He tried to murder us in the conservatory!" "That is right, he wanted to kill us with the candlestick." "Yes, that is what happened. Shall we do another cryptic crossword puzzle?") I rate it confused and a half stars!