Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
Once Was Lost is a book for anyone who has doubts about their own faith in God.
I was not a pastor's kid, but I did have a fanatic priest/director at my school, in which I was for twelve years. When you're told every single day that God loves you, that He's always looking out for you, that what happens is always for the best... in moments of struggle, or of solitude, you tend to ask yourself: "Where is God now?".
I understand now that it is normal to ask yourself questions, to doubt what you believe, to seek for answers to questions you '"shouldn't have". But then you learn that the more you know, the more questions come with that knowledge.
We never stop learning in life. We learn something new everyday, and we have more doubts too.
The real courage relies in seeking those answers, in learning without fear.
The protagonist of this book is a girl named Sam, who not only struggles with her faith in God, but in family and miracles, too. Her father's magical words seem to be available to anyone but herself, her mother landed herself in rehab and somehow seems to be refusing her, and a thirteen year old goes missing. Anyone could be guilty, so when your faith in everything is falling apart, it's hard to trust anything or anyone.
It's about finding answers, or discovering truths you didn't wanted showed. It's about accepting what comes your way with everything you've got. Or you may not find answers, and at some point, you just gotta let go.
I was not a pastor's kid, but I did have a fanatic priest/director at my school, in which I was for twelve years. When you're told every single day that God loves you, that He's always looking out for you, that what happens is always for the best... in moments of struggle, or of solitude, you tend to ask yourself: "Where is God now?".
I understand now that it is normal to ask yourself questions, to doubt what you believe, to seek for answers to questions you '"shouldn't have". But then you learn that the more you know, the more questions come with that knowledge.
We never stop learning in life. We learn something new everyday, and we have more doubts too.
The real courage relies in seeking those answers, in learning without fear.
The protagonist of this book is a girl named Sam, who not only struggles with her faith in God, but in family and miracles, too. Her father's magical words seem to be available to anyone but herself, her mother landed herself in rehab and somehow seems to be refusing her, and a thirteen year old goes missing. Anyone could be guilty, so when your faith in everything is falling apart, it's hard to trust anything or anyone.
It's about finding answers, or discovering truths you didn't wanted showed. It's about accepting what comes your way with everything you've got. Or you may not find answers, and at some point, you just gotta let go.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
I wonder how you’re supposed to know the exact moment when there’s no more hope.
About losing faith in everything you believed. This was such a good read, and the main character was really relatable. I was just bothered that it kind of turned into a mystery/thriller at one point, but other than that it was really good.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I might be positively biased toward Sara Zarr because she's a patron of the library I work at, but I just love her books. Her characters are so real and her writing is excellent. She also narrates the audiobook of this one and she was perfection!
This book is really hard to review. I loved it so much, identified with so much of it. I can't necessarily call it brilliant writing--but then again, if the writing makes you feel like you're THERE the entire time, if you're angry at the difficult/ bad characters, and love the good ones, and don't care about the neutral ones...isn't that brilliant? I felt like Samara and Nick were especially well realized. And considering how completely irritated I was with Sam's dad and Erin, I suppose that they were pretty well realize too.
I'm definitely not a fan of present tense writing, but it took me several chapters into the book to even notice the tense. Instead I was sucked into Sam's world. Into loss and tragedy and faith and hope and confusion. I remembered how much being a teen in an unhappy family sucked. How heady those first feelings of love were, especially if it was an 'older boy.' The tragedy grabbed me too, the story with Jody's disappearance, and how it changed the whole town. I even liked the ending...it felt real. Not too perfect, not too sad and miserable. In one scene in the book, Sam finds a piece of art she'd done a few years earlier that featured the words "faith, hope, and love". and in the end, that's what you see. You may not understand why everything had to happen to get them there, but in the end, Samara's faith is her own. Her family is real people she can understand a little bit better, who seem to be working towards a resolution. and she has a steady, realistic love blooming in the background.
Also, I tend to be skeptical of religious novels, whether it's my religion or not. They tend to have an agenda, and be pushy and preachy. This WASN'T. It was one hundred percent about Sam, and her faith was an integral part of her life and the life of the community. But it all felt so organic, such a natural part of the story, that it made me love the story even more.
But wow, I really wanted to smack her dad! Not the least of which was for barring her from the internet and having her own email. He really needed to get his head out of his #$@.
I'm definitely not a fan of present tense writing, but it took me several chapters into the book to even notice the tense. Instead I was sucked into Sam's world. Into loss and tragedy and faith and hope and confusion. I remembered how much being a teen in an unhappy family sucked. How heady those first feelings of love were, especially if it was an 'older boy.' The tragedy grabbed me too, the story with Jody's disappearance, and how it changed the whole town. I even liked the ending...it felt real. Not too perfect, not too sad and miserable. In one scene in the book, Sam finds a piece of art she'd done a few years earlier that featured the words "faith, hope, and love". and in the end, that's what you see. You may not understand why everything had to happen to get them there, but in the end, Samara's faith is her own. Her family is real people she can understand a little bit better, who seem to be working towards a resolution. and she has a steady, realistic love blooming in the background.
Also, I tend to be skeptical of religious novels, whether it's my religion or not. They tend to have an agenda, and be pushy and preachy. This WASN'T. It was one hundred percent about Sam, and her faith was an integral part of her life and the life of the community. But it all felt so organic, such a natural part of the story, that it made me love the story even more.
But wow, I really wanted to smack her dad! Not the least of which was for barring her from the internet and having her own email. He really needed to get his head out of his #$@.
I thought the plot of this book was great, and I liked how the book started. I felt like Sam was dragging her problems that she had with her family out just a little to long. She kept complaining about her mom, and how little money they had, which made Sam a unlikeable character in my mind. I also didn't like the ending very much, because there was this huge build up to finding Jody, and then she was just found and everybody was fine. The book didn't give a good explanation of how she was abducted and what it was like for living in a cabin with her kidnapper, who killed himself, for days without escape. Even though it had some cons, I did really like the character development and the relationship between Sam and Nick.
Did not enjoy this book. Part of the problem with the audio book is that it's read by the author, not a professional. Dialogue was difficult to follow because characters' voices and Sam's thoughts all sound the same. Also did not like the "chapters" by days... What the hell were we counting? Mom has been in rehab for three weeks already, Jodie goes missing on Day Two, and then "a month later" at the end all felt like lazy story telling.
I thought the plot of this book was great, and I liked how the book started. I felt like Sam was dragging her problems that she had with her family out just a little to long. She kept complaining about her mom, and how little money they had, which made Sam a unlikeable character in my mind. I also didn't like the ending very much, because there was this huge build up to finding Jody, and then she was just found and everybody was fine. The book didn't give a good explanation of how she was abducted and what it was like for living in a cabin with her kidnapper, who killed himself, for days without escape. Even though it had some cons, I did really like the character development and the relationship between Sam and Nick.
This book built up some pretty high stakes ... and then took them all away. Sam's crisis of faith didn't feel that authentic to me, either. I could easily have read an entire book about just her family situation, but these other plots made it feel both overstuffed and somehow too slow? I don't know.
Samara is the preacher's kid. Her mother is in rehab from a drinking problem. Her father has no time for her & Sam thinks he is having an affair with the youth minister. To top it off one of her friends is missing, either kidnapped or has just run away. I thought some things were not covered very good but the story line is fair.