I’m going to start this post by telling you that you really must read Lost & Found by Brooke Davis. You must. It is a profoundly beautiful book and you should get your hands on a copy and read it post-haste. Don’t wait. Buy it now.

It took me a little longer to read this book because, well, I found some of it a little emotional. Davis created characters that got under my skin. They are all, in some way, broken and when I read broken characters their innocence/naivety/resignation/soul crushing grief seems to stay with me for a long time. It’s almost like a well written book can cause a transference of emotions – Freaky Friday-style. I feel emotionally sodden afterwards. Spent. Exhausted. Good fictional characters make you feel these things.

I took a highlighter to this book so many times. I just didn’t want to forget the importance and beauty of some of this writing. Here are two of my favourites bits.

She sat on the bed and cupped her knees with her hands. How do you get old without letting sadness become everything? Her mother had been young once, with her easy limbs and pretty fingers, but then she had saddened, and shrunk.

Maybe when you let out your last breath, you let out everything, your memories and thoughts and things you wished you’d said and things you wished you didn’t say and the pictures in your head of hot coffee steam and the last look on your dad’s face and the feeling of mud between your fingers and the wind when you run down a hill and the colour of everything, ever.

Thank you Brooke Davis for giving the world this book. It is such an amazing gift.

Follow Brooke on Twitter.
Thanks to Hachette Australia Books for my copy.