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A review by peeled_grape
The Lost Daughter Collective by Lindsey Drager
4.0
Smart, but strange. I have a feeling most of this went over my head. I read this all in a day, but I feel like I need way more time and maybe more readings to pick it apart. The title is the best way to think of this: it's a collection of all the ways a father can lose a daughter, and I think it's the title that helped me gain some understanding of the novel. (I read "The Archive of Alternate Endings" first and was more in the "looking for breadcrumbs" mindset.) It is extremely removed from the world we know, which gives it this dystopian, satirical undertone, but wraps back around to things that are familiar to us. Very strange. Very smart.
I found myself admiring the endings in these narratives -- I think Drager has mastered multiple narratives -- but also individual, more philosophical lines. "Fear is the bedmate of truth" is such a raw line. This is one of those "if you blink, you miss it" books, where you really have to be paying attention. There is so much detail and there are so many narratives that every line matters. And the form -- that was brilliant.
The only reason it gets four stars and not five is for the language: everything is said like a riddle and never outright (though this is absolutely more of a personal preference).
I found myself admiring the endings in these narratives -- I think Drager has mastered multiple narratives -- but also individual, more philosophical lines. "Fear is the bedmate of truth" is such a raw line. This is one of those "if you blink, you miss it" books, where you really have to be paying attention. There is so much detail and there are so many narratives that every line matters. And the form -- that was brilliant.
The only reason it gets four stars and not five is for the language: everything is said like a riddle and never outright (though this is absolutely more of a personal preference).