In the Forest of the Lost and Found

By KD Van Brunt, Pub Date April 8, 2021

3.5* Best Enjoyed when you’re in the need for a story about a city girl surviving the wilderness

Allysa Baylor, the daughter of a world-famous director, wants to go as far away from her family as possible this summer, hopefully to France with her boyfriend. Ever since her mother died in a car accident, she has blamed her troublesome younger sister, Grace, for the accident and has done everything she could to not be around her for longer than necessary. Unfortunately, her famous dad has planned a one week middle of nowhere Canada trip with her, her sister, her brother, and her grandfather. The only thing keeping her on that trip outside of buttering up her dad in order to go across the Atlantic, is her little brother Nick, who she adores. She knows she would be letting him down in a major way if she didn’t go with.

However, when her dad and stepmom aren’t able to make it on the trip, the three siblings are sent with their grandfather to a very remote cabin by float plane, which the siblings are not at all prepared for. When their check-up flight fails to show up halfway through the week, and Alyssa spots a massive almost prehistoric-sized bear on the other side of the lake, they all begin to get concerned. It’s not until their flight back to civilization is a no-show that the family realizes that they may be in far deeper trouble then they ever could have imagined, and when their supplies begin to dwindle, Alyssa realizes that she may be the only one capable of trekking the hundreds of miles of woods in order to find help. 

I always enjoy a good survival story. At first, I had no idea where the author was going with this. Alyssa is a mostly cold rich girl with very little in the way of actual character at the beginning—and what character is there is vastly unappealing to me. However, her journey into the wilderness begins to change her and we get a more in-depth view of her past that explains a lot of her aloofness. The survival itself is pretty interesting and intense. There is also the dark, overarching enmity she has with the prehistoric-sized bear tracking her every move that keeps the pace of this one at a good clip.

The ending is very abrupt and super unsatisfying which is why I didn’t give full stars, but the book is still worth it to see the character build-up that Alyssa and her siblings experience during their months of survival in the woods. 

Thank you to ARS Fabula and Netgalley for this advanced copy in exchange for a fair review.