Ten Second Reviews

The Lost Man

By Jane Harper

A man is found dead, curled up in the only shade for miles in the outback.  His car is found, working, and filled with water and food, abandoned, miles away.  His brother Nathan, who at three hours away is also his nearest neighbor, tries to navigate both long-buried family secrets and the current day mystery as to why his brother would essentially commit suicide by leaving shelter in the harsh Australian conditions.

Having been recommended this after reading The Dry, I have to say, I enjoyed this one even more! It bears a similar resemblance to The Dry, what with the reliving of past traumas, an outcast from the town coming back to the fold, and the current mystery about a man who does something completely out of character.  However, The Lost Man gives a much better sense of scene - this is trite, but the environment is another character in the book.  Lives literally hang in the balance depending on how well prepared you are when you leave your front door.  The screaming isolation, omnipresent red dust, and killing heat add to the atmosphere and plays a crucial role in the plot.  This is a book to read in the winter to feel warm again.  Harper does a good job portraying a man who has been loosened from all societal ties and finds himself drifting closer to the edge, even as he sees it coming.  And the resolution of the brother's death was well done - there's no "shocking twist" coming - the lead-up to the conclusion was earned and such that even while you might have a pretty good idea of what happened, it was still a revelation as to who.  Finishing The Lost Man felt like drawing out poison from an old would, a sense of calm after the increasing paranoia and trauma relived throughout the book.  I like how Harper does endings - as short as they are after the denouement, you know the characters well enough from the story to know where everyone is going from here and it feels satisfying, although in this case, I would have actually loved to spend even more time with everyone (not like The Dry, which has some less sympathetic people).

Echo North

By Joanna Ruth Meyer

So this is another re-telling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, although that was not immediately clear to me.  There's bits and pieces of other stories in there too - Beauty and the Beast, Tam Lin,  anything involving an evil step-mother... I don't think I would have picked it up if I'd realized - EotS, WofM is not my favorite fairy tale (it's weirdly long and convoluted), and I think Edith Pattou's East is the definitive re-telling - no need to keep trying at it, it's pretty much perfect on its own.   That being said, I don't really have a ton of other critiques for Echo North.  It's fine, it doesn't always make logical sense, the way that the original story never really made sense, and Hal never really developed into that interesting of a character, so Echo's journey to save him felt more mandated by plot than true love.