Sadie Hawkins Sunday Review #7: The Lost Girl

The Lost Girl

Author: Sangu Mandanna
Pages: 432
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Source: Purchased
Recommended by: Lilian of A Novel Toybox

Description from Goodreads:
Eva's life is not her own. She is a creation, an abomination--an echo. She was made by the Weavers as a copy of someone else, expected to replace a girl named Amarra, her "other," if she ever died. Eva spends every day studying that girl from far away, learning what Amarra does, what she eats, what it's like to kiss her boyfriend, Ray. So when Amarra is killed in a car crash, Eva should be ready.

But sixteen years of studying never prepared her for this.

Now she must abandon everything and everyone she's ever known--the guardians who raised her, the boy she's forbidden to love--to move to India and convince the world that Amarra is still alive.

What Eva finds is a grief-stricken family; parents unsure how to handle this echo they thought they wanted; and Ray, who knew every detail, every contour of Amarra. And when Eva is unexpectedly dealt a fatal blow that will change her existence forever, she is forced to choose: Stay and live out her years as a copy or leave and risk it all for the freedom to be an original. To be Eva.

From debut novelist Sangu Mandanna comes the dazzling story of a girl who was always told what she had to be--until she found the strength to decide for herself.

First Sentence: "I remember being in town with Mina Ma."

Review:

The Lost Girl has been sweeping in praise, and I can see why. Sangu Mandanna's debut is a mature, beautiful story with philosophical resonances. She touches on what it means to be human and on the nature of creation. This is a book that makes you think about the world, and what it would be like if it were just a little bit different. Though The Lost Girl didn't quite cross the border into being a story that I absolutely love, I can confidently recommend it to anyone who appreciates a thoughtful, introspective story with a bit of action.

The world herein depicted differs very little from the modern world in which we live. The only real difference is the existence of the Weavers and their Loom. Modern-day Frankensteins, not of name but of occupation work there, building humans from dust and bones. These Weavers create Echoes, copies of real human beings, insurance policies of a sort. Purchase an Echo of your beloved child and you will not have to worry about her death, because you've got a spare raised in secrecy by Guardians to know the intimate details of her life.

The process is not explained in detail, and I do admit some skepticism about how the Weavers are able to create physically identical human with the ingredients Mandanna relates, but this really doesn't detract from the story. The idea of the Echoes is less of a scientific venture than a philosophical one. What does it mean to be an Echo, to be intended to be someone else? Are they human? Do they have souls? Are they individuals? Should they have rights?

The heroine, who names herself Eva, is the Echo of Amarra, the eldest daughter of a wealthy family in Bangalore. There's no doubt that Eva is her own person. She enjoys pursuits that Amarra does not, like art, and loves a boy that Amarra does not. Amarra and Eva both resent the intrusion of the other. Eva's presence cheapens Amarra's life because she feels expendable, and like she has to share everything with Eva; Eva exists only to be an imitation of Amarra, and has to squash her individuality, her desires, her ambitions. Their relationship and the way that only one of them can truly, openly exist at once has echoes of What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang.

I rooted for Eva to get a chance at life. She has so much spirit and such a strong will to live, but she has no right to life if she doesn't follow a strict set of rules, and, even if she does, she could be killed for any number of reasons. Somehow, though, I never really connected with her or the other characters, except perhaps for Amarra's charming little brother Nikhil. I'm not really sure what was missing for me there, but that disconnect I felt kept me from completely loving the book.

My only other concern is the very end. The very last chapter made things a bit more cut-and-dried than I would have liked. I thought Mandanna was going for an unclear ending, and she does in a way, but she tied up one arc with a neat little bow that did not fit with the mood of the rest of the book. For the kind of book that The Lost Girl is, the vaguely happy ending sounded a false note for me, though I imagine most readers will thrill to it, particularly if invested in the characters.

Sangu Mandanna is an author to watch. Her debut is powerful, beautifully-written, and full of moving philosophical questions on what it means to be human. The Lost Girl  is a great read-a-like for Kat Zhang's What's Left of Me.

Rating: 4/5

Favorite Quote:

"'What does your heart want?' It's the question the woman with sad eyes asks me in dreams. I wonder if she knows the answer. There's such sorrow in her voice, as if she knows what I want and knows already that those things are stars in the sky, entirely out of reach, no matter how high on my toes I stand and stretch for them.
     But stars sometimes fall."

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Up Next:

The next Sadie Hawkins Sunday book will be Fang Girl by Helen Keeble, selected for me by the ever-marvelous Jenni, the darling behind Alluring Reads.

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