Lost You by Haylen Beck tells the story of Libby, a single mom, who takes her son Ethan on a dream vacation. Ethan is three and the type of child who likes to run to the elevator, get in, and push all the buttons. It happened a few times on this trip, but the last time Libby wasn’t able to stop him, and he disappears. You can tell Libby is hiding something, and later, Ethan is found with a woman named Anna, who claims to be his mother.

Flashback to three years earlier, Anna is a struggling waitress who loses her job. A friend recommends she reply to an ad looking for test subjects. Anna is not sure she wants to do this, but signs up anyways, only to find out they are looking for surrogate mothers to help people in states where paid surrogacy is illegal. Anna agrees to become a surrogate because the money is too good to pass up, and the agency she’s working with already has a family matched for her.

Libby and Mason have been struggling to conceive and find an agency where they can pay for a surrogate mother. They quickly find a match for them, and Libby is extremely excited to finally be a mother. Mason on the other hand has doubts which cause turmoil in their relationship. Libby becomes obsessed with the idea of motherhood to the point of wearing a prosthetic pregnancy belly and telling everyone that she’s actually pregnant.

Mr. Kovak is a veteran who works for the agency and watches the surrogates until they deliver to make sure they are being healthy and that they give the baby up when the time comes. He takes any means necessary to make sure that happens. When Anna decides she wants to keep the baby things take a turn for the worse.

This book started off great! I was pulled in right from the start. However, none of these characters are likeable. Maybe Mason, but he’s not a big enough part of the story. I honestly didn’t want any of these people to get the baby and didn’t care what happened to them. In the prologue, I liked Libby, and felt for her when her son disappeared, but then reading the back story, I couldn’t stand her. I felt bad for Anna, but she signed a contract and shouldn’t have changed her mind. As the story progresses, I stopped feeling bad for her because she was an awful person. Throwing Mr. Kovak in out of nowhere and making a huge chunk of the book about him was unnecessary in my opinion.

I do think the subject matter was interesting and haven’t read a book like this before. The book moved at a fast pace which is important to me. I just wish I liked the characters better.

Thank you NetGalley and Crown Publishing for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.