My Amazon and Goodreads review of Lost Children Archive (Rating 3) – Are We There Yet? Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli is a road trip that reads in the disjointed manner in which I imagine it was written. Vignettes, composed at random, are pieced together haphazardly. There is no “aha” moment that eventually reveals the hidden rationale for their order. Although place names mark the journey’s progression from NYC to the Southwest, the chronology of scenes is otherwise interchangeable. The narrative begins with an enticing question: Will a blended family (mother, father, boy, girl) stay together? Alas, the story soon loses its way. While many of the incidents and conversations en route are interesting, they arise from the mind of the author, not the psyches of the characters. The whimsical observations of the five-year-old girl, in particular, are not credible as having originated with her. I soon asked: Are we there yet? After a while, I didn’t care when, or if, we arrived. To its credit, the narrative regains momentum at the end. Nevertheless, as a writer myself, I suspect this book was more engaging to research and write than it was to read.
