Once Was Lost

This National Book Award finalist tells a quiet, somber story. Sam is a teenager with adult responsibilities. Her charming dad, a pastor, has all the answers to everyone else's troubles, but his professional commitments leave Sam to care for her alcoholic mother. Author Sara Zarr's observant delivery evokes Sam's feelings of self-pity and her sense of injustice. When a younger girl from their church disappears, her worry, as well as media attention that focuses on her friends and her father as suspects, sends her into a tailspin. Zarr's portrayal of Sam depicts how hard being a teen can be. The author gives an intimate and searching performance of a young person too soon thrust into an adult world. D.G. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Starred review from August 17, 2009
Two strong new novels, both starring pastor's daughters, explore the sometimes thorny intersections of religion and family life.
Once Was Lost
Sara Zarr
. Little, Brown
, $16.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-316-03604-7

Faith takes a front seat in National Book Award–finalist Zarr's (Story of a Girl
) hard-hitting third novel. When 13-year-old Jody Shaw is kidnapped in broad daylight, her abduction rocks the once secure town of Pineview and her church community (“A thing like this changes the way you think about everything and everyone, and you can never go back”). Her disappearance provides an eerie backdrop to protagonist Samara Taylor's personal drama: her mother's alcoholism, which prompted a four-week stint in rehab, and her father's refusal to focus on anything (his marital problems, the inappropriateness of his relationship with a 26-year-old church member, his parental responsibilities) other than his role as pastor to a flock in need. Sam's questions regarding God's existence (“Do you just decide that you do believe, no matter what, and then force your mind shut when doubts try to come in?”) and her place in the world feel all-encompassing, aptly mirroring the mood of her close-knit community as they trawl for answers in Jody's case. Beyond delivering a gripping story, Zarr has a knack for exposing human weakness in the ordinary. Ages 12–up.