I would not recommend this book to people who like a straightforward narrative with a single focus. This book is actually two stories which are not exactly tied together while still maintaining a delicate balance.

Libby is a famous author of a series that has a crazed fan following. The complex world of ‘The Falling Children’ was so involved from the very beginning that I had to check to make sure I was not missing a prequel or something. The author does a great job of making it feel like we are the reader, can be part of the fandom by all the brief looks we get into the world and the parallels that are drawn. The author could even do a spin-off with the world within the fictional book.

I would have liked this book even better if not for the romantic relationship that felt just plain weird. There was not much reason for the relationship to turn out that way just to ensure a happy ending, but that just might be me.

Libby is having trouble finishing the series because of multiple reasons. While grasping at straws, she ends up meeting a mega fan called Peanut. This decision to meet and ask for help has unexpected consequences which ultimately all work out.

I would recommend this book to people who like to have to think a little on their feet as they read but still want a happy ending. I would definitely try another book by the author, maybe even the actual Falling Children series?

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

This was an entertaining but strange story about a famous but anonymous children's author with dementia and a young girl who is a super fan. It reminded me a little of Backman's "My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologizes". I enjoyed the book, but was disappointed with the ending as it left me wanting more (and not in a good way). That said it was still a fun read, worthy of my time. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC. 3.5/5!

Love the recommendation for a customer who liked Lessons in Chemistry. Customers will connect with the themes of found family and loss. It’s on our bestseller wall and we will be sure to recommend this to our literary fiction customers.

Quirky, unique, and enjoyable, Libby Lost and Found is not your usual author-has-writer’s-block-and-her-book-is-past-deadline story! I loved the setup details: a terribly insecure, shy, socially awkward woman writes a children’s fantasy novel that becomes universally popular (under a pseudonym, of course). With the support of her publishing team, the author’s identity continues to remain a secret as the subsequent book installments become the wildly popular Falling Children series and spawn the clothing, gear, and accessories enticing children and teens everywhere. But how will Libby complete the long-demanded final book in the series as her early onset dementia and memory loss stifle her? In a lucid moment, she forges a solution: Fans to the rescue! An adult novel with humor and heart, this novel wasn’t perfect, but quite enjoyable.

This story has such an interesting concept. I was drawn in from the start.

Libby Weeks is the author of The Falling Children (think the Harry Potter fanatics times 100)! She writes under the name F.T. Goldenhero. The only people who know are in her publishing world. She is way behind on her latest edition and the world is growing edgy with anticipation. Libby lives a very quiet, lonely life filled with fear and anxiety and now, she is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. Her children, as she calls the book characters, are stuck in a very bad situation in the latest book and she is at a loss, mentally and otherwise, to save them. When she comes across a letter, one of many, from 9 year old Peanut Bixton, she believes Peanut can save the book. She is the number one fan after all. She flies to Peanut's little town and then things go off the rails. Peanut has her own story. She is such a wonderful spunky character. When a wealthy man offers a million dollars for whoever finds out the true identity of Goldenhero, people go crazy. Will the truth come out? Will the book be finished and the children be saved?

You will have to read for yourself. You will not be disappointed. Ms. Booth has created not just a sweet story about family but also a fantastic fantasy world where the children live in a toy store and so much more.

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for a copy for review.

For those of us who’ve ever been totally drawn in to a story and worried about the characters weeks later, this novel is for you.

A children’s book author who was just diagnosed with dementia is desperate to finish book 6 of her series before her memory completely leaves her. In a panic she finds a young fan who knows her characters and plot and enlists her help in writing the ending.

There are a few gaps in the story that are noticeable and disconcerting but the main characters seem true to the novel. The ending was an interesting way to tidy it all up but it works with the storyline.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC to read and review.

This book was emotional and imaginative and closely resonated with me as someone who has had close family deal with dementia. I think that Libby trying to deal with her diagnosis, reality and life with work is something that is so common because she just wants to finish her last book. Her relationship with Peanut is my favorite part. The humor in this book was well placed and made it not so dark

4.5 stars

Libby is a middle-aged author of a childrens/ya fantasy series called The Falling Children. Libby was also just diagnosed with early onset dementia. In struggling to write the last book in her series, she is also struggling to remember a lot of different things, like her dog at the dog park for example. She takes to reaching out to a fan for help on how to finish the book. Since she writes under F.T. Goldhero, she acts as though she is Goldhero's assistant on this quest.

Peanut is starting Junior High and is obsessed with the Falling Children. She writes fan mail to Goldhero saying she knows the perfect ending to the series. When she starts school, she loses her best friend and has a rough start to the school year. The only thing she enjoys is working with Libby to help F.T. figure out the ending.

With a variety of characters, this story can break your heart and put it back together again. This found family is everything you'd want them to be. Secrets unravel and hard subjects are tackled, but it really makes you think about the struggles people go through that you may not see.

I didn't want to put this one down! I tried to find time to listen to the audio so I knew where it was headed. Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Libby lost and found had an interesting synopsis that made me instantly want to read the book; famous author Libby is struggling to finish her book while dealing with a dementia diagnosis and finds help from a young fan of her book series who knows her characters as well as she does. The opening of the story hooked me I instantly liked Libby’s character and the authenticity she had as she struggled through life. Peanut was a likeable character as she was introduced as well. However after the first 20% of the story it all started to fall apart and became a jumbled story with to much happening while also nothing happened to move the story along. I stuck with the book only to see if the author somehow wove it all back together and had an interesting surprise conclusion but the ending was a let down and didn’t make any sense. There are serious plot holes in this story but it started with so much potential.

thank you netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review. i think this was an important read for me with having people in my family with the same kinds of disease and it was somehow comforting. it was well written and i would read another by her.

This book centers around Libby, a lonely woman struggling with dementia, but also a best selling author who writes under a different name. I loved Libby more than I think I have ever loved another character…. And Libby did it all! She made me laugh, made me cry, made me mad… she gave me emotional whiplash and I loved every bit of it.

This one felt a little disjointed to me. There were parts that felt super repetitive, and the structure of the book within a book didn't always work for me. There's a possibility that Booth was trying to create this effect because the story is centered around a young woman who has dementia, but as a reader, it just felt like I was reading the same part of a story over and over again. I did love all of these characters and felt like they were pretty unique. But I felt like there was going to be a bigger payoff at the end, and I was just left disappointed. Not sure if this is just me being dense, but I didn't really understand why some of the setting was the same as Libby's novel. Was the entire thing just a figment of her imagination? I hate having questions like this at the end, because it makes me feel like I missed something. This book just didn't gel for me, and as much as I liked all the nods to fantasy fans and the world of Harry Potter, I probably won't be recommending this one to other readers.

Sometimes its OK to believe without knowing why.

Once upon a time there was an enormously popular fantasy series written for children (but adored equally by adults) called the Falling Children mysteries, featuring fearless Everlee, laid back Red Vines-chomping Benjamin and sensitive Huperzine as they have adventures and outsmart the villainous Unstopping. Who authors the series is the biggest mystery of all….someone known only by the pseudonym of F. T. Goldhero, but whose real identity has remained a secret throughout the publication of the first five books in the series. The sixth and final installment is due out (it is, in fact, decidedly overdue) and speculation is rampant as to when it will be published and what it will contain between its covers. There is a really big problem, though, of which even the publishers are unaware….:Libby Weeks, the highly anxious forty year old woman without family or friends from whose imagination sprang the Falling Children has just been diagnosed with dementia. For the past few months Libby has been forgetting the keys to her apartment, the password for her email, even leaving her canine companion Rolf behind at a dog park….and she has found herself with a partial manuscript that has the Falling Children in a terrible pickle and she has no idea how to finish the story. As the online clamor reaches deafening heights, Libby (well, technically F. T. Goldhero) receives an email from a Falling Children superfan, 11 year old precocious social outcast Pandora “Peanut” Bixton, who technically lives in the small town of Blue Skies, Colorado, but prefers to inhabit her imagination, writing her own stories and reading the Falling Children books over and over and over again. In the email Peanut tells her hero that she herself could write the final Falling Children book in just days, so there is no reason why Goldhero can’t just finish the darned book. Libby thinks that maybe this is the solution to her problem, and sets out to meet Peanut and see if together they can’t save the Children and their world from a horrible end, finish the book at last and maybe usher in a happy ending for themselves too.
There are so many of us in the world, readers who fell in to a make-believe world and wanted to stay there at least for a while. Was it the Chronicles of Narnia, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Harry Potter? Especially for the last, with its midnight book release parties at bookstores worldwide and people creating quidditch leagues, the mania surrounding the Falling Children books, its mysterious author and its long overdue conclusion is all too believable. But that is only part of the appeal of this novel. With characters like Libby and Peanut, both of whom are far happier living within the stories they create than in the messy and unkind world in which they spend their days, the reader’s sympathies are engaged.as each struggles to make connections and find happiness. A fickle former best friend for Peanut, a possible love interest for Libby whose profession could prove catastrophic to her anonymity, and the anachronistic community of Blue Skies where their lives collide are all part of the many elements in this charming story chronicling the fears of flawed people and the lives they yearn to have. This is a must read for anyone who has considered fictional characters friends or has enjoyed the escape of a world within the pages of a favorite book, as well as for those who have enjoyed the books of Jasper Fforde, Elizabeth Berg and Ronald Dahl. My thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for allowing me early access to this clever story which wears its heart on its sleeve..

Cute story. Love supporting debuts and esp loved the Two things I’ noticed in terms of messaging:
1. As an author, you never really know what a book does for the reader. What a gift.
2. As a reader, we put a lot of expectations on an author.

I also loved the cover and the synopsis behind sounded so fun and unique of an idea. Perhaps it’s a me thing but it teetered off into just a “like” not a “love”.

Things that I didn’t like:
1. Love story: wasn’t necessary
2. The ending wasn’t believable
3. Confusing pieces of when the children/book are mentioned. I was trying to figure out if I should be detailing the pieces of the storyline or if they even mattered
4. Started strong and just kind of slowed down to a point where i didn’t really want to pick up the book. Cue audiobook time which normally helps :)
5. Nothing tied up to me.

Libby Weeks needs help to finish the last book in her children’s fantasy series, the Falling Children. Libby has a problem. She has dementia and is having trouble remembering how to finish the book.

Libby lives alone with her dog. She has no family or friends to help her. When eleven-year-old Pandora Bixton writes to offer to help Libby finish her book Libby travels to the small town of Blue Skies to meet Pandora.

Pandora is known as Peanut and was adopted as a baby. Peanut’s older sister and brother are also adopted

Peanut wants to see the final book finished and tries to help Libby

This was such a good story. It was about families, identity and dementia. The pace was fast. Libby struggles with dementia and keeping it a secret. Peanut struggles to be accepted by her classmates while searching for the identity of her parents.

I loved all the characters and how they dealt with their problems.

Thank you NetGalley and Source Books for a chance to read this
E-Book. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

This novel had a lot of interesting plot ideas and parts of it were really entertaining. However, there were a couple things that I didn't really enjoy. I thought that the premise behind Libby's fictional book series was too similar to series that already exist, like "Keepers of the Lost Cities" and "Stranger Things". There were also too many coincidences in the novel that were never clearly explained and seemed "too good to be true".

I did really appreciate the author's depiction of Libby's dementia and thought that aspect of the novel was really well written. A lot of the novel is told from Libby's POV and it was easy to feel her frustration and fear as her mental state declines.

Overall, I thought that this novel was well written, but a bit cliche.

Libby is the successful writer of the Falling Children fantasy series. She writes under a pseudonym so no one knows who she really is. The children who read her books love the characters and believe there character's lives are similar to their own lives. Libby has now started the last book but has started having memory problems. This becomes a big issue when she meets someone who sees her office. There is a million dollar reward to anyone who uncovers the author. She decides that maybe a fan can help her finish her book. Peanut is a girl who does not fit in. She is adopted and is searching for her real parents just like the character in the books. Libby and Peanut meet in Colorado and Peanut says she will help her finish the book. This leads to all kinds of trouble. As Libby's memory fails her Peanut and her family try to protect her.

I really enjoyed this book. The book is part the fantasy stories that Libby writes and her trying to finish her last book. She has no one in her life and Peanut and her family take her in. What an engaging and hopeful story. As Libby declines there are many blessings that enter her life. Everyone hopes for someone to help them in their time of need. The ending of the book is somewhat of a surprise. I highly recommend reading this book.

Thank you to #netgalley, #StephanieBooth and #SourcebooksLandmark for a copy of this book.
#LibbyLostandFound

I devoured this book. It is so unique!

Libby is the author of the most popular children’s series (J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter) but no one knows it’s her. Her life is her characters, stories and her dog Rolf. When she discovers she has early onset dementia she is in desperate need of help finishing her final book which is being demanded by all the fans and her publishing team. Luckily, super fan Peanut has been writing Libby her ideas and stories for months and is just what Libby needs. Libby goes to Peanut’s small town and stays with her unique family thus beginning a new journey and chapter of her life.

I loved the characters and their flaws, I loved the scattered references of Libby’s series throughout the novel. I just loved it. Although it was heartbreaking when reading the chapters with Libby’s POV and how her dementia would be making the simplest thing difficult. I was begging her to let Peanut and her family know of her diagnosis, that was the hardest part of the book for me.

This book is incredibly charming and I hope it gets so much love and attention. I genuinely think it deserves some spotlight!

I recommend it to anyone who was in a book fandom at some point in their life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmarks for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this so much. It was really satisfying to see it all come together. It was heart wrenching and warming. A really good debut

This was not the book for me. I found it confusing and weirdly bloated.

The story revolves around Libby, who has early-onset dementia (very early - she’s in her early 40s). Unfortunately, Libby has no friends or family and no one to help as she deteriorates very quickly, all while trying to finish the final book in a wildly popular children’s fantasy series. She somehow manages to find a young fan’s story ideas online and then to arrange a meetup. This young girl, Peanut, is the second narrator, and not only does she want to see the finale of her favorite series, but she kind of believes she could be one of the main characters, even while dealing with some significant family struggles and mundane middle school friend problems.

I wanted to like this intergenerational story about the love of books and writing, and I enjoyed the initial exploration of Libby’s experience with dementia and Peanut’s experiences with being the weird kid at middle school and having too many adults at home, but many annoyances kept popping up. For one, both narrators make many, many references to the Falling Children series (the one that doesn’t exist in the real world, only in this book.) I couldn’t piece together all the quotes and details to figure out the world of the Falling Children, and I honestly couldn’t be bothered to care.

Also strangely, we’re told over and over again by both narrators that Peanut’s hometown has an eerie resemblance to the setting of the Falling Children series, but that never gets explained.

There’s also an instalove storyline. Just… why?

And Libby has very little agency throughout the book. She seems to be stumbling through and has to get saved over and over, by pretty much every other character in the book. It was difficult to tell whether some of the incidents were supposed to be funny or just to show how bad her memory loss is and how much she desperately needed rescuing. I couldn’t tell whether the characters and setting were supposed to be quirky or sincere. The ending wasn’t believable at all.

Ultimately, those annoyances tanked this book for me. But I did find some of the characters and storylines to be a little interesting. If you like a book with a lot of world building on the side and don’t mind feeling off balance much of the time, just like the two narrators, you might enjoy this book. Otherwise, I’d give it a skip.