Let's Read: A Book with Antonyms in the Title

I still remember learning about antonyms from my grade two teacher, Mrs. H. She was ferocious.  I was a little intimidated by her. She loved my older brother whom she called Robbie. Robbie just may have been a golden student. I did not realize until many years afterwards when I found my report cards from elementary school how average of a student I was.

I picked up this title, Lost & Found, at Chapters during my last visit to Calgary for my appointment at the Regional Fertility Clinic.  It provided company while I was last in Regina.  I thought it fitting that the story opened with little Millie waiting in the mall for her mother to return as I began the novel while sipping a tea in a coffee shop in the mall.  Millie waiting for he mother to return hiding under the ladies underware in the ladies department and leaving written messages for her mother to find her was both comic and poignant.  Her mother never returns, caught in her own grief, from Millie's father passing.

From there the story just ran to the absurd as Karl the touch typist, an elderly man who is on the run from a senior's home, joins her cause in finding her mother. And then Agatha Pantha, an elderly shut-in woman who has shielded herself from the world since her husband's passing also joins the foray. Agatha was an interesting character, dumping the grief casseroles on the footpath outside her home, measuring daily her wrinkles, yelling commentaries of daily occurances as seen through her window.

The Toronto Star sums up the book,  "A story of grief, where young and the old are regarded with sympathy; the villains are middle-class adults."

Karl gets in a few too many unbelievable fights.  I would not recommend you race out and purchase this book even though it has a lovely display, a graphically pleasing cover aesthetic, and is recommended by Chapter's staff with the big sticker on the front cover. If you do decide to read please share your take on this novel. I would love to hear if you also agree it was a little unbelievable or if you disagree with my take please leave any otherwise reasonings as to why I should re-evaluate my two star rating.