THE LOST THINGS CLUB

On her annual visit to her aunt and uncle’s house in Chicago, 12-year-old Leah Abramowitz is distressed by her 7-year-old cousin TJ’s silence.

The premise is thoughtful and poignant: A child survives a school shooting in which one of his classmates is killed, is left severely traumatized, and his cousin manages not only to help him find his voice, but to grow herself. Unfortunately, the overall impression readers are left with is that TJ’s trauma and the initial violence that caused it—an incident that is addressed with activism at the end that feels insufficiently developed—are ultimately vehicles to present Leah’s transformation. She repeatedly expresses her longing to be special and is acutely aware of those she believes possess this quality. First-person narrator Leah also likes answers and certainty, and through the process of helping TJ, she learns to get in touch with her feelings. Her phone is her go-to for all information—her aunt jokes that she’s addicted to it—and her self-absorption contributes to the story’s feeling of tone deafness. Readers will have figured out TJ’s trauma miles before she does. Leah’s narrative voice occasionally sounds too grown-up (“It was, in fact, one of those rare summer days in Chicago. When it was neither too hot nor too sticky”), and the staccato writing style grows tiresome. Leah and her family are Jewish and implied White; one major secondary character presents as Black.

Tackles a challenging subject with insufficient nuance.