I called my grandmother to wish her a happy birthday a few weeks ago and we, of course, got to talking about books. My grandmother and I have always bonded over words and books. I used to stay with her and my grandpa over the summer for a few days just me (a huge treat when you have two brothers, let me tell you) and I always packed lots of books because, after spending all day crafting, we’d always sit together and read on the couch before bed. And to this day we share that same love of books, always touching base on recent reads when we talk. Although we have very different reading tastes, the shared love is what’s important. Anyways, this was one of the books my grandmother mentioned having just read and she recommended I try it, because she thought it was really good and also had a touch of the supernatural, which is something I really love. Naturally, I got it from the library the very next day.

When Anthony Peardew, an elderly author who has sent years collecting and cataloguing lost items after losing a precious memory of his years-dead fiancée, brings in Laura to clean and care for his home, he has a secret goal. Anthony knows the end of his life is near and he plans to leave Laura all his earthly possessions, including his collection of lost items, on the condition that she work to return as many of them as possible to their original owners. Laura, recovering from a bad relationship and divorce, is unsure about the task, but decides to do her best with it, to honor her relationship with the sweet Anthony. Along with Anthony’s, now her, neighbor Sunshine and the gardener. Freddy, Laura sets out to follow his directives. And ends up on a course that will intersect with Eunice, who has both a lost and a found item that will “complete” Anthony’s quest, as Eunice’s story comes to a close and Laura’s finally starts to open back up.

This was a very sweet story. It is one of those books with two different plots and sets of characters that get introduced simultaneously, and both develop separately over the course of the novel. And though you know that at some point they are going to intersect, I have to be honest, it took me longer than I expected to figure out how it would actually happen (which was nice, actually, because it kept my interest higher that way). I personally preferred the story from the “past,” if you will, that follows Eunice and her relationship with her friend, Bomber, though I would think that’s probably the minority (similar to the way I liked the focus on the older couple perspective in The Notebook, but the clear primary story is the younger couple’s.) I struggled a little bit with my feelings for the present-day story, focusing on Laura – there were a number of things that bothered me about it, but the main issue is that I wasn’t a fan of Laura’s character and therefore struggled to care for her story. This is particularly of note for the way she interacted with Sunshine, who I believe it was mentioned has Down Syndrome. Though to be fair, maybe it’s less Laura’s treatment of Sunshine than the author’s treatment of her, which was sort of as the “idiot savant” typecast. It just rang a little…uncomfortable…for me. To be honest, I am sort of put off that the publisher felt like the portrayal was ok. This personal reaction, unfortunately, spilled over into the rest of that storyline, which, sadly, included the supernatural elements that my grandmother had called out as something I might like. And I think I would have, if it wasn’t so closely tied to Sunshine being the one who could “sense” things from the lost objects. (Really, I think the story could have been told just as emotionally and effectively, perhaps even more so, without the inclusion of that supernatural element. I see the effect the author was going for, and it was generally enchanting, but weirdly executed and overall mostly superfluous.)

There were a few other things about the book, despite my inability to connect with Laura and my iffy feelings about the way Sunshine was written, that I did enjoy. First, going back to Eunice and Bomber’s timeline, I thought the way aging parents, and then one’s own aging, were handled very tenderly. Alzheimer’s is a terrifying disease and Hogan really wrote it with a quiet understanding and suffering that was heart-breaking to read. I also felt like the feelings Eunice and Bomber had for each other, the relationship they carefully tended and shared, was equally tender and heart-breaking. And that was what really made me care about the ending when Eunice and Laura finally overlap. Also, my absolute favorite sections were the little stories/snippets that Anthony Peardew write that were sprinkled throughout the novel, in which he imagines the stories behind each of the lost objects that he brings home and catalogues. I really wish we had gotten more of those.

Overall, there were some very poignant parts to this novel, but I have to say that it just wasn’t for me. I am so glad that it was one my grandmother loved and that we get to share this reading and reflective experience though! People don’t have to like the same books in order for books to bring them together and that’s one of the things I love most about reading. Also, as far as this book in particular goes, I have to say that it reminded me a lot, in overall feeling and vibe, of A Man Called Ove, and if you enjoyed that book more than I did (there’s another one I have an unpopular “meh” opinion about), I would think you might want to try this one too.