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A review by nematome
Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr
3.0
3 1/2 stars
While I can now say unequivocally that I am a committed Sara Zarr fan, this one is probably my least favorite of hers. Like her other novels, it’s well written and replete with honest, bare emotion, but for some reason I didn’t connect with this one completely. For me, her books belong in two categories: there’s the more bristly, damaged, and difficult category for Story of a Girl and Sweethearts, and then there’s the melancholy but hopeful category for How to Save a Life and this book. Me being me, I prefer the horribly difficult category. But I strongly suspect that this novel and her latest will be the most popular among readers. So, if you are one of those folks who didn’t quite like Story of a Girl because it seemed too depressing, then I would give this one a try.
Still, Sara Zarr is one of my favorite writers of contemporary YA. She’s the kind of writer who, if I were a bit less mature, might make me want to say, “In your face Australia!!”
Sam is a teenage girl isolated by her status as the Pastor’s daughter. She lives behind an image of the good girl, the devout Christian, the perfect daughter in the perfect family. But in reality, her mom is in court-suggested rehab and her dad, the perfect young and hip Pastor, doesn’t have time to notice that she’s alive. Even her friends keep her at an arm’s length. When a terrible tragedy occurs, the people of her small town are shaken, and Sam begins to question her own faith.
This is a book about faith, but not just simple religious faith. It’s about faith in the people around you, in your family. It’s about that childhood realization that parents are just extremely flawed people like everyone else, and they will make horrible mistakes. I kept going back to the title of this book while reading it, to the lyrics of Amazing Grace: “I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.” Reading this book makes me consider those words in a new light, because as much as this book is about regaining what once was lost, it’s also about having your eyes opened. Sometimes that’s empowering, and sometimes that means losing something that can’t ever be regained.
I think that this book is also about repression and denial. Sam keeps everything – her anger, grief, jealousy, and doubt – bottled up inside. And it’s clear that she’s learned this behavior from her mom, the perfect housewife who drinks to get through the days and from her dad, the perfect Pastor whose life is actually falling apart. It seems like by the end of this book, nothing has really changed for Sam in that respect (although I did see growth in both of her parents). She never does tell her mother or her father or anyone how she really feels. And I think that would have been completely realistic (and yet another example of the ambiguous endings that I’ve grown to know and love from Sara Zarr), but the ending itself just feels too…resolved. In my mind, Sam was heading down a path of depression and a possible addiction of her own someday if she didn’t learn to open up to someone. But the ending seems to be telling me that everything’s going to be alright, and that just doesn’t add up for me. I guess I was looking for more catharsis, with an ending that neat. Maybe I feel like happiness demands a price.
Perfect Musical Pairing
Mumford & Sons – Hold on to What You Believe
Ah, it’s been a nice run of Sara Zarr and Mumford & Sons, hasn't it? Now I just have to wait for her to write another book.
I think that this is a love song primarily, but when I listen to it I think about Sam and her mother. Those were the parts of this book that affected me the most. Sam is so fundamentally a little girl who misses her mother terribly, and that reached me as both a mother and a daughter. I also love this verse of the song:
“But hold on to what you believe in the light
When the darkness has robbed you of all your sight”
While I can now say unequivocally that I am a committed Sara Zarr fan, this one is probably my least favorite of hers. Like her other novels, it’s well written and replete with honest, bare emotion, but for some reason I didn’t connect with this one completely. For me, her books belong in two categories: there’s the more bristly, damaged, and difficult category for Story of a Girl and Sweethearts, and then there’s the melancholy but hopeful category for How to Save a Life and this book. Me being me, I prefer the horribly difficult category. But I strongly suspect that this novel and her latest will be the most popular among readers. So, if you are one of those folks who didn’t quite like Story of a Girl because it seemed too depressing, then I would give this one a try.
Still, Sara Zarr is one of my favorite writers of contemporary YA. She’s the kind of writer who, if I were a bit less mature, might make me want to say, “In your face Australia!!”
Sam is a teenage girl isolated by her status as the Pastor’s daughter. She lives behind an image of the good girl, the devout Christian, the perfect daughter in the perfect family. But in reality, her mom is in court-suggested rehab and her dad, the perfect young and hip Pastor, doesn’t have time to notice that she’s alive. Even her friends keep her at an arm’s length. When a terrible tragedy occurs, the people of her small town are shaken, and Sam begins to question her own faith.
This is a book about faith, but not just simple religious faith. It’s about faith in the people around you, in your family. It’s about that childhood realization that parents are just extremely flawed people like everyone else, and they will make horrible mistakes. I kept going back to the title of this book while reading it, to the lyrics of Amazing Grace: “I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.” Reading this book makes me consider those words in a new light, because as much as this book is about regaining what once was lost, it’s also about having your eyes opened. Sometimes that’s empowering, and sometimes that means losing something that can’t ever be regained.
I think that this book is also about repression and denial. Sam keeps everything – her anger, grief, jealousy, and doubt – bottled up inside. And it’s clear that she’s learned this behavior from her mom, the perfect housewife who drinks to get through the days and from her dad, the perfect Pastor whose life is actually falling apart. It seems like by the end of this book, nothing has really changed for Sam in that respect (although I did see growth in both of her parents). She never does tell her mother or her father or anyone how she really feels. And I think that would have been completely realistic (and yet another example of the ambiguous endings that I’ve grown to know and love from Sara Zarr), but the ending itself just feels too…resolved. In my mind, Sam was heading down a path of depression and a possible addiction of her own someday if she didn’t learn to open up to someone. But the ending seems to be telling me that everything’s going to be alright, and that just doesn’t add up for me. I guess I was looking for more catharsis, with an ending that neat. Maybe I feel like happiness demands a price.
Perfect Musical Pairing
Mumford & Sons – Hold on to What You Believe
Ah, it’s been a nice run of Sara Zarr and Mumford & Sons, hasn't it? Now I just have to wait for her to write another book.
I think that this is a love song primarily, but when I listen to it I think about Sam and her mother. Those were the parts of this book that affected me the most. Sam is so fundamentally a little girl who misses her mother terribly, and that reached me as both a mother and a daughter. I also love this verse of the song:
“But hold on to what you believe in the light
When the darkness has robbed you of all your sight”