Lost in the Moment and Found

Welcome to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go.
If you ever lost a sock, you’ll find it here.If you ever wondered about favorite toy from childhood... it’s probably sitting on a shelf in the back.And the headphones that you swore that this time you’d keep safe? You guessed it….
Antoinette has lost her father. Metaphorically. He’s not in the shop, and she’ll never see him again. But when Antsy finds herself lost (literally, this time), she finds that however many doors open for her, leaving the Shop for good might not be as simple as it sounds.
And stepping through those doors exacts a price.

Thank you so much to TorDotComPub for sending me an ARC for review. This does not affect my thoughts, all thoughts are my own honest opinions.

Before I start this review, I just want to make sure that if you are thinking of reading this you check out the trigger warnings. This book deals with some heavier subject matter than the others in the series. Some triggers include: gaslighting from a parent, grooming, death of a parent (specifically witnessing the death of a parent). Please do look up other ones if you are concerned. But as Seanan says in the forward, “Antsy runs” before anything can happen with her stepfather.

From that intro alone, you can tell that this novella is a very personal story. From my perspective, I think Seanan dealt with the subject matter in a very careful way. But my perspective is one that doesn’t personally relate with the heavy subjects, so others may have more well formed opinions on that. Anyway, my point about it being a personal story is that that fact makes it a hard book to rate. How can you rate a book that’s clearly someone’s personal experience? That just feels wrong. So I gave this 4 stars, and I think others will have a varied experience, but just know that I think it’s odd to rate this kinda story.

As I said before, “Antsy runs.” She runs away to a world of lost things and treasures and doors. It was so cool to get to learn a little bit more about doors in this installment!! I’m always fascinated about portals and other worlds (which is obviously one reason I like this series). I really like how Seanan reveals more and more about the world in each of the book series she writes. It always leaves me so excited to learn whatever tidbit she revealed, but also wanting to know so much more haha.

I won’t say too much about the plot, since it’s such a short story, but this is a story about childhood innocence and how it can be stolen away unfairly. It was beautiful and heartbreaking, and I’m really glad to have started with this as my first read of 2023.

Lost in the Moment and Found releases TOMORROW!!! So get yourself to a bookstore or library and check it out!

If you haven’t read the other books in the series, I highly recommend them. The first is titled Every Heart a Doorway. Ri has reviews up for books 3 and 4 (here and here), and I have a review of book 7 here.