BOOKS: LOST AND FOUND by Carolyn Parkhurst

"Unique...fun and imaginative!"

LOST AND FOUND
by Carolyn Parkhurst
(2006, Little, Brown and Company)

Hardcover, 292 pgs, $23.95 U.S.

LOST AND FOUND has a bright yellow cover, with parrots looking at you. Eye-catching, it just looks fun. I grabbed it off the shelf in a stressful moment for pure fictional relief -- and I got hooked!

This is a unique book, fun and imaginative. Parkhurst takes us along on a round-the-world adventure with the contestants in a Reality TV scavenger hunt, Lost and Found, with all the staged drama, hidden agendas, scripted reality and ratings manipulation we've come to know and love or hate as "Reality TV."

LOST AND FOUND is not a romance, although there is a love story -- actually, several! It's not an adventure story, mystery or thriller, although there are elements of all of these. It is a lot of fun, with a wonderful cast of characters and plenty of twists, turns and surprises. Parkhurst is a master storyteller, switching the narrative voice between various characters, and incorporating conversations and flashbacks to fill in background and relationships. Each character, in his own voice, reveals enough about himself and the overall story to weave it all together in the end. Nothing is as clear-cut or simple as it might seem at first.

Although this is a writer's imagination, and invention at its best, you can almost see how the experience of Reality TV, as a contestant or a member of the production crew, could be just this crazy!