Libby Lost and Found is a fun, yet deep book that explores complex topics like loneliness and early-onset dementia. You might be wondering why I called this a fun book with such dark topics? Well, our main character Libby Weeks has created an entire world of fiction akin to Harry Potter lore, with an immense fan base. The kicker? She's anonymous and no one knows who truly writes the The Falling Children book series. This premise sets itself up for delightful hijinks that lighten the mood to the darker topics of Libby's disease and the sad reality of her life. As Libby loses so much in her life, she finds an equal, if not greater amount along the way.

Thank you NetGalley and RBmedia for the ARC of this audiobook for my honest review

Wow this was amazing, it’s very hard to do a review without spoilers but let’s just say to figure this one out on why it’s so good you have to read it for yourself. Absolutely beautifully written, I felt transported into the worlds within this book and it was just the best worlds possible. Just an emotional and beautiful book, a great way to look at very difficult subjects. I’m definitely going to recommend this book to a lot of people and get myself a physical copy.

I'll be publishing my review on Goodreads and StoryGraph 14th November and on Tik tok most likely will add to a monthly wrap up post with review the beginning of December.

I absolutely loved this story. It was really giving Meg Shafer vibes. There were parts of un-certainty, but I feel it went with the theme of the story. A younger lady dealing with dementia. I absolutely loved Peanut and really, she made me smile like no other. Thank You NetGalley for the audio version of Libby Lost and Found. The narrator, Mia Barron was perfect and elevated this story to another level.

What would an author of a beloved, unfinished children’s book series do if she discovered she was diagnosed with dementia? This is the strong premise that introduces the story of Libby Weeks.

The story pulls us straight into Libby’s struggle to come to terms with her diagnosis and the turmoil it brings, especially as it impacts her work—the "The Falling Children" book series she’s poured her heart and soul into. When she arrives in Blue Sky, Colorado, she meets the Bixton family, who, although sometimes a bit stereotypical, intense and frustrating, bring a warmth to the story and offer her much-needed support. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the novel, where Libby’s emotions and personal journey are at the center of the action.

However, the second half of the novel feels somewhat scattered: constant references to Libby’s imaginary series, while intended to deepen the story, often pulled me out of the narrative, sacrificing moments that could have had more impact. I would have loved to see more development in Libby’s relationship with Peanut, exploring both their real-life interactions and the bond that grows between them.

Three cheers for this entertaining debut! I found "Libby Lost and Found" to be one part whimsy, one part tragedy, one part satisfying second chance — and wholly engaging throughout.

Secretly, Libby is the best-selling author of a global phenomenon, a children's fantasy series so popular that some are willing to pay thousands to learn her identity. Thankfully, that secret is locked tight — until Libby's own mind begins to crumble. Experiencing the first struggles of early-onset dementia, Libby finds herself no longer able to craft new adventures for her beloved characters, despite high demand for the long-overdue final book. With no support network in sight, Libby finds herself traveling to the hometown of her biggest fan, eleven-year-old Peanut, hoping that she can help her finish the story.

I appreciated all of the characters in this story, along with the light mystery it contains (who are Peanut's biological parents). While there is a story-within-a-story feel, it's just a touch, as the final Falling Children story lands with too little context or character development to be meaningful. I am a big fan of anything that humanizes the experience of dementia, so walking in Libby's shoes and feeling her confusion was a big win for me. That said, I did feel that there was a little too much background left unaddressed — the trauma of Peanut's childhood, Libby's reasons for her reclusivity, and the pull of the instalove. There's an incident with Peanut towards the end of the book that really did not receive the weight and response it deserved; it felt the characters glossed over it and moved on in a way that's not beneficial to future readers who may face similar struggles.

All in all, a very strong debut effort, and I look forward to reading more from Booth in the future. Mia Barron had a solid performance on narration, with multiple voices that felt convincing. Thank you to RBMedia, NetGalley, and Stephanie Booth for providing an advance copy for honest review.

Libby lost and Found by Stephanie Booth

I am going to take a moment to just remember how this story impacted me because it gave me the worst book hangover I have ever had.

Peanut is waiting for the last installment of her favorite book series, The Falling Children. Her whole life is wrapped up in the characters but the book is way past when it was supposed to be released and her frantic emails to the author go unanswered. Trouble is the author, Libby, has dementia and can’t complete the book. No one knows she is the author but she reaches out to Peanut in hopes of finding the right ending for her book… If only she could remember how to do the basic things in life…

Oh man, I have never read a book like this one. We are drawn into a world with Peanut who views everything in her small town as things that actually happen in the book. She doesn’t care about anything else. Helping her idol is a dream come true but trying to work out a new ending to her favorite series is so daunting when she sees what’s been written so far.

The writing is phenomenal. The characters are well balanced, fully formed people and I felt like I was getting to know them all. I now want to read the book series haha I know it's not real but Peanuts enthusiasm was so infectious! I like how dementia was treated with dignity in the book. I loved the plot, it felt a little fantastical in nature even though it isn’t a fantasy book and I loved the charm of the small town.

Amazing book. The narration was on point and I felt a little bereft when it ended.

5 stars just doesn’t seem enough…..

This book took me in from the beginning. When an author is struggling to complete a very popular book series she looks to her #1 fan for help.
Very much loved Libby and Peanut, and was invested in their outcomes. The story had a depth to it which was pleasantly satisfying and surprising.

I listened to the audiobook and found the narrator to draw me in from the get go.

Libby Lost and Found is a delightful book for young and old alike. The story follows Libby Weeks, a children's author, who writes under a secret name. After she develops early on set Alzheimers, she seeks help from a superman named Peanut.

Libby and Peanut have a unique bond and they each learn things from each other.

This book is for readers young and old alike.

Libby Lost and Found by Stephanie Booth

This book was definitely different than I expected but I still found it incredibly unique. While it’s not really fantasy, the story within a story gives it a magical, fantastical feel. I thought it had a good balance between the heavy and the heartwarming. I’ve seen a lot of great reviews for this one floating around and while it won’t be a standout favorite for me this year, I’d recommend picking it up if the premise sounds interesting to you.

This was such an interesting premise and definitely hit the spot in so many ways that it pains me to say it wasn't really for me.

The good: well written and incorporated a lot of clever things into the plot to keep things interesting. The mix of the real story and the fictional Fallen Children series was so detailed and integrated. Also well-narrated.

Why only 3⭐ then?

One of my pet peeves in movies and books is that annoying child that just keeps getting in trouble and dragging all the sensible adults along with them. Peanut was that for me.

And while I did love Libby as a character, she made me so uncomfortable. Maybe it is too close to my own paranoia due to a family history of dementia. Everytime she had an episode, I felt the panic and just wanted to get past the scenes quickly.

So while this is admittedly an engaging read, it just honestly stressed me out too much to enjoy.

I'm not sure I had any real expectations for this book, but man the story blew me out of the water. Probably my favorite literary fiction I've read this year!

Libby Lost and Found by Stephanie Booth was a delight to read. The premise of an author experiencing early onset dementia created a main character that tugged at your heart. Combining her most faithful fan, Peanut, and her family solidified the story. My love for juvenile fiction and for underdog characters made this a book that will stick with me for a long time. This book is perfect for fans of Fredrik Backman and Chris Colfer.
Thank you, NetGalley for providing this book.

4.5 Stars.

When the author of a super popular children's fantasy book series is diagnosed with dementia before she's able to finish the last book in the series, she becomes desperate for help. She reaches out to Peanut a super fan who has written to her every single day for years. On a mission to finish the book, Libby (the author) visits Peanut and changes not only her life, but Peanut's and her family's lives too.

This story is filled with imagination and all the emotions. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll no doubt love this feel-good book!

The audio narration is great too making this book an enjoyable, engaging experience all the way around.

Wow, with the cover of this book giving off fluffy-romance meets Where’d You Go, Bernadette vibes, I didn’t see this plot coming. Such an imaginative story that would be silly if it didn’t have me holding my breath to see what happens the whole way through!

Peanut and Libby are quirky, mysterious and lovable in their own very different ways, as is the rest of the cast of characters surrounding them. The author really brilliantly weaves together the story and the story in the story, with the latter being a spoof on the world building and manic fandom surrounding books like Harry Potter, but also kind of successfully laying out the intricate plot and language and heroes and villains that constitute that kind of captivating saga.

Kudos to author Stephanie Booth for a tremendous debut and thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an advance audio version of this fantastic new release.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6903338832

Libby Weeks is the bestselling author of the Falling Children books, a fantasy series about three orphaned children written under the name F. T. Goldhero. Libby has also just been diagnosed with dementia. She struggles with her diagnosis as she tries to finish the last book in the series. The deadlines pass her by, she forgets to contact her publisher, and there is growing pressure from the public for the final book. Libby is contacted by a fan, Peanut, who claims that she can help finish the books, so Libby travels with her dog Rolf to Blue Springs, Colorado where Peanut lives. The two try to figure out how to give the series the ending it deserves as Libby struggles with her health and Peanut struggles with her family.

Libby Lost and Found was an interesting listen. The narrator did a good job with the text, although I think there might have been some anagrams that got lost in translation from text to audio that made the narration seem a bit odd. The chapters from Libby's perspective really made you experience the frustration that she felt as she was trying to do the things that she had always done without issue before. Peanut's chapters were interesting, but also a bit odd. Blue Springs seemed to mirror a lot of the setting in the Falling Children books, but I wasn't sure if that was due to Peanut's imagination, Libby having been there before, or it just being a coincidence. I wish that this aspect of the book had been expanded upon a bit more. I did enjoy the characters with all of their faults and flaws, and I appreciated how everyone coped with their issues differently. This will be a good one for fans of books about books or books about complicated families.

I really loved this audiobook narrator. However, the book itself was a miss for me. Very jumbled and hard to follow some of the plot points. While I did enjoy the ending it just was not my cup of tea.

Libby Weeks is a famous author of a remarkable children’s series of books and is working on the final book when she is diagnosed with early dementia. Peanut, a 11-year-old uber-fan is just the perfect assistant to help Libby finish the book.

But it is so much more, found family, grief, friendship, and lots of emotional heartbreak.
Those that believe in the power of books will not be able to turn the pages fast enough as they enter the world with Libby and Peanut.

Thank you to NetGalley, Stephanie Booth and RBmedia | Recorded Books.

Libby, under the pseudonym F. T. Goldhero, is the author of The Falling Children and she’s deep into the troubles of writing the final installation of the series. There are loose ends to tie up and the children are caught in a precarious predicament Libby doesn’t know how to save them from. Not to mention Libby has just been diagnosed with early onset dementia. Enter Peanut, a precocious eleven year old that’s obsessed with The Falling Children and is determined to help Goldhero end their story the right way. Desperate, Libby reaches out and falls in with Peanut and her family in a small town not too dissimilar from the one she’d created.

This story was not what I expected it to be and somehow exactly what I expected. There’s so much heart in these pages and it made me believe in Libby and this series she’s written.

There’s so, so much grief here. Libby grieves herself and the life she’s lived and the ending of something she spent an entire life loving and creating in The Falling Children. All of her grief echoes so beautifully through the rest of the cast, I could spend hours dissecting all of it. It’s not a grief without hope, though. Or without love.

The story speaks to writing and creation and all of the ways that loving something can go. The obsessive fans mercurial relationship to the author. Peanut and her family. Libby and her children. There’s a lot of love here and a lot of healing and it was a joy to read, truly. It made me want to write. It made me want to read. It made me want to sit down and obsessive explain every plot point to someone entirely uninterested just because I have to get how much I love the story out.

I think this book has its flaws, some of which may have come about simply because I read it via audiobook. I might have missed something, especially with the amount of wordplay that takes place, but I wanted a more concrete resolution by the end. I can take a real good educated guess and I understand why it’s a little uncertain, but it just irks me a little. The audiobook’s narrator also took me a while to get used to. She read with an attitude that got under my skin and made Libby’s every thought sound a little rude and judgmental to me, but that’s highly a personal preference.

All in all, I’m going to be recommending this book like crazy for a hot second.

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed listening to this book! The narrator was great and easy to listen to. Libby Weeks is a world-famous writer with the pen name F.T. Goldhero. The book series is coming to an end when Libby is diagnosed with early-onset dementia. She is struggling to finish the book when she decides to turn to Peanut, a child from a small town in Colorado who has a deep love of the book series and a wild imagination. Libby is looking to Peanut for answers on how to wrap up the book series, and we realize the struggles and secrets they are facing.
I appreciate the way you can feel Libby’s confusion and fear that comes along with her dementia, Peanut’s struggles with friends and her passion for the falling children, and how their lives intertwined through their shared struggles and experiences as they were on a shared yet separate journey. I enjoyed seeing the humanity in other characters too.
There were some parts of the book that were a bit far-fetched and somewhat confusing for me to follow, but that could be because I wasn’t listening to it as closely as I could have been. There were times I couldn’t tell if an event was really occurring or if it was happening inside Libby’s head. I struggled keeping up with the characters from The Falling Children and their intricacies while also trying to understand the characters from this book.
Overall, I would recommend this book to physically read or listen to as an audiobook. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this ALC. All opinions are my own.

Libby Lost and Found by Stephanie Booth is a heartfelt and beautifully written exploration of loss, particularly when a writer struggles to find their voice, and the power of fandom. Booth captures readers with her relatable characters, especially Libby and her relationship with her biggest fan, Peanut.

The small-town setting serves as a perfect backdrop for the unfolding family drama, highlighting the impact of community support during difficult times. The narrative deftly intertwines the literary and fantasy worlds, creating an engaging and immersive experience.

Overall, this is a captivating story that resonates with both readers of contemporary fiction and fans of fantasy, reminding us of the strength found in connection and creativity.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this ARC