Review: Lost and Found

Lost and Found by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Who needs superpowers when you could have micropowers??

"'We're all just a quick bike ride from crazy, Ezekiel,' said Dad. 'It almost never requires any driving.'"

This book was a riot, I laughed myself to tears a couple of times! Then I had to explain why I was laughing to my husband, but of course, it's never as funny when you have to explain it...you had to be there. Orson Scott Card has exactly the kind of quick, witty humor that I appreciate immensely, as well as the depth to his characters that make me wish I could be friends with them.

Lost and Found is another example of a basic theme I've noticed in a lot of Card's books: the main character is a young boy who is a social outcast and hardly anyone recognizes his incredible intelligence and special abilities. Ezekiel Bliss (AKA Ezekiel Blast as he prefers to call himself) has a unique skill to know where lost objects are located in his vicinity and when he picks them up he knows how to find the owner. He has felt compelled to return things for as long as he can remember, and unfortunately his habit of bringing people their lost items unintentionally made him look very guilty of stealing said items, which got him into big trouble on multiple occasions.

So Ezekiel gave up on trying to return lost items and did his best to ignore all the lonely scrunchies and missed toys he passed on his daily commute to school, which gave him no small amount of anxiety. That is, until Beth Sorenson forced her friendship upon him.

Beth wasn't afraid of Ezekiel's pariah status: she went right up to him and asked if he really was the thief everyone claimed him to be. She challenged him in every way but also inspired him to be brave. Because of her, Ezekiel felt encouraged to join a study that looks into "rare and useless talents" like his that allowed him to analyze his ability and discover its limits. This led to him accept a plea from a police detective to help him find a missing girl.

If you like a good mystery, crime-solving, and have a sense of humor, this book is for you. I loved this book for its word choice, humorous exchanges, introspectiveness, and the race-against-the-clock action. It reminded me of the TV series: The Finder. I could barely put it down!

Mature Content: occasional profanity, kidnapping, a few graphic deaths, mentions of child pornography.

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