YA romance.
Darcy Wells has always loved reading and escapes into books to escape the hoarding her mother does. She has never kissed a boy and is terrified to let anyone into her home to see her mother's disease. Then Asher Fleet enters her life. She remembers him from school, and that he had a crash earlier which shattered him and his plans to be a pilot for the US Navy.
Her best friend encourages her to take a chance, and let some people, especially Asher into her life.
This was a cute romance that addressed some heavy subjects - hoarding, abandonment, financial struggles. I was looking for a romance to complete a book challenge, which is why I read this book. I enjoyed that Darcy loved books. ( )

I love the play on Pride and Prejudice and the quotes from Peter Pan, but I had come to the conclusion pretty early in the book that Darcy was just as much a hoarder as her mother. The only real difference was that Darcy hoarded books. I will say that I never saw the mother as the annotator of Darcy's Peter Pan. ( )

Didn't finish - someone hiding away from the world - too close to home!

I was going to give this 4 stars, but considering what I felt after By The Book, this was definitely 5 stars.

The best thing about this was the relationships. No, not the romance, though that was pretty good too, but the friendship with Marisol and her mother was just amazing! There actually wasn't an angsty romance part of this, it was more an angsty mother-daughter-relationship part, and an angsty best-friend relationship part, and there was a tiny angsty romance part.

That's not to say I didn't love the romance as well! I really liked Asher, and I really liked Darcy (Yes, I know, more on that later) with him.

You get an insight into post-concussive disorder in this book, and though I have read a bit about it, and seen it in Elementary(CBC), this gave me even more knowledge about it.

Another thing I loved, was that though this book too had literary references like By The Book, most of them were from Pride and Prejudice, which, having read a lot of retellings of, I mostly got. And there were not that many references. And she could talk properly.

The book really revolves around a Peter Pan book, which I have also not read, but having seen enough Tinker Bell and Neverland things on Disney, I didn't have that much of a problem with that as well.

A thing I didn't like: when you have two childhood best friends, who are like the bestest of friends, they don't talk like this:

Marisol looked me over. “Now for your outfit.”
I tugged my black tee and tan shorts. “I’m already wearing an outfit.”
“No,” Marisol said with a slow head shake. “There’s a big difference between wearing clothes and wearing an outfit.” She pointed at my closet. “Get that denim shirt I made you buy and layer it on top, opened, sleeves rolled. Your tee has a little rip.”
I glanced down. Grimaced.
“Then the necklace with the dangling blue stone that’s hanging in your jewelry caddy, by your black jacket. And swap the flip-flops for sandals. The black ones with silver buckles.”
“How in the—”
“After all this time, you’re actually questioning it?”

No, she should actually not be questioning it. It is quite obvious that these two are comfortable with each other, and that Marisol loves clothes, so I don't need this bit forced into my face.

Same with the scene before this, where they were taking about the boyfriend, this kind of familiarity? I know they have a bond. You don't need to regale me with anecdotes real people probably don't in real life. Those kind of things need to be inferred, or it feels artificial somehow.

I know it isn't that much of a problem, which is why I didn't change my rating because of it. Also, this was only in the beginning, and it doesn't happen a lot like that later, so all was forgiven.

One other thing that irked me; her name was Darcy. I thank God that this didn't turn out to be a retelling (I think), but the name was kinda putting me off in the beginning.

I really liked it, and I recommend it to anyone who likes romance, focus on relationships other than romance, slight insight in PCD, insights into hoarding, and books in books. ( )

https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2021/04/2021054-library-of-lost-things-laura.html ( )