Lost and Found: 02/22/10

I picked up a dog-eared copy of <0373250452>Lost & Found via a local BookCrossing meeting a few years ago. I liked the title and the premise.

Sam Washington on a flight home from a business trip to New York realizes she has lost her journal. It contains all sorts of personal and intimate information and she desperately wants it back. Back in New York, Ben Fisher, an American born TV producer who lives and works in London has found her journal and after reading it decides to return it and maybe hook up.

I had a number of problems with the novel. The first are the voices. The story is told from both Sam and Ben's points of view. Their voices though aren't different enough to quickly distinguish who is who and sometimes there's little or no segue between their points of view.

Sam lives and works in London; she should use British words and phrases. To some regard she does but it's inconsistent. For example, she's missing a personal journal which she calls a diary. Given that she's British and an extremely busy professional, my mind kept snapping "day planner" (which is called a diary in British English) instead of a journal (or diary in American English). If anyone was going to call her missing book a diary, it would be Ben but he seems to think in British English more so than Sam does.

Finally, there's the roommate, Gemma, who is only there to complicate things. Her one goal in the book seems to sleep with potential boyfriends before Sam does. She's there to slow down the plot and create unneeded tension. The tension is already there in the form of the secrets revealed in the journal and in Ben's desire to keep his knowledge of Sam quiet. Gemma needs to be kicked to the kerb to give Sam and Ben some time alone.

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