Let’s Get Lost
A Modern Fairy Tale
An invigorating storybook romance with science, not magic, at its center, Let’s Get Lost is a satisfying tale.
Steven Ramirez’s Let’s Get Lost is an enchanting fairy-tale romance set in a variation of early 1960s America.
Adam works at the Bland Corporation despite having inherited his parents’ fortune. They were scientists and were killed in a laboratory explosion at Bland. Adam is tasked with promoting the company’s science division. In this role, he befriends an Englishman, Del, whose last great success at Bland Corporation was in 1934. Adam also meets and falls in love with Jenny, his boss’s daughter, for whom he pines throughout the story. After a skirmish with his boss, Adam is sent to live with his uncle, Nathan, where he uncovers a risky, illegal scientific experiment that his uncle and a young research assistant, Halsey, are conducting—an experiment that may prove to be the downfall of what remains of his family.
The characters of Let’s Get Lost are compelling and endowed with their own complex inner worlds. Many have secrets that they are trying to hide from Adam or others. And their personalities are robust, developed through select details revealed at key points in the story. Their pithy exchanges further help to distinguish them from one another. And Adam’s love interests are all charming yet flawed in some way—if sometimes also archetypal. Still, their idiosyncrasies are refreshing.
Though it involves some tropes, Let’s Get Lost relies on science instead of magic as its driving force to invigorating effect. And the prose is elegant yet understated, featuring rich narrative flourishes, dry humor, and period-specific details (for example, what is now John F. Kennedy International Airport is still Idlewild in the text). The narrative arc is at once surprising and satisfying, fulfilling the expectations set up early in the story but taking several unexpected turns. Cliffhangers are used to great effect, lending the tale a note of urgency. As Adam uncovers more about his past and becomes further entangled in the unethical scientific experiment his uncle is conducting, the air of mystery thickens. It is only in the striking conclusion that all is revealed, tying together what seem like disparate stories. The climax is exhilarating, with an earlier scene having foreshadowed poignant elements of the closing act.
Let’s Get Lost is a playful, charming fairy-tale romance novel that is elevated by the creative risks it takes.
Reviewed by
Caitlin Cacciatore
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
