Libby Lost and Found
A Novel
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $1.99
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don’t know who they are without the books they love. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves and the chapters of our lives we regret. Most importantly, it’s about the endings we write for ourselves.
Meet Libby Weeks, author of the mega-best-selling fantasy series, The Falling Children—written as “F.T. Goldhero” to maintain her privacy. When the last manuscript is already months overdue to her publisher and rabid fans around the world are growing impatient, Libby is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Already suffering from crippling anxiety, Libby's symptoms quickly accelerate. After she forgets her dog at the park one day—then almost discloses her identity to the journalist who finds him—Libby has to admit it: she needs help finishing the last book.
Desperately, she turns to eleven-year-old superfan Peanut Bixton, who knows the books even better than she does but harbors her own dark secrets. Tensions mount as Libby’s dementia deepens—until both Peanut and Libby swirl into an inevitable but bone-shocking conclusion.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Booth's whimsical if half-baked debut, a beloved children's author enlists a fan to help her finish a book. Libby Weeks, 40, is writing the highly anticipated conclusion to her popular fantasy series, published under the pseudonym F.T. Goldhero, when she's diagnosed with early dementia. Flailing, Libby turns to Peanut Bixton, a devoted and prolific fan she meets on the internet, who turns out to be an 11-year-old girl. Like the protagonist of Libby's series, Peanut is adopted and searching for her real parents. Peanut points out that there are plenty of other eerie similarities between her town in Colorado and the world in Libby's books, such as a mysterious stranger who gives her a ride home one day, and who resembles Libby's villain. As Libby's dementia worsens and she misses deadlines, her publisher turns up the pressure, while Peanut learns about her origins. Booth leaves a few plot threads unresolved, such as a campaign to uncover Goldhero's identity, and hints of fantastical ties between Peanut's life and Libby's work fail to bear fruit. Still, Booth ably evokes the logic of a child's imagination in her portrayal of Peanut. Here's hoping the author's next effort will realize her potential.