The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta | ARC Review

Title: The Lost Coast

Author: Amy Rose Capetta

Series: N/A

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Urban Fantasy, LGBT+, Romance

Publisher: Candlewick

Publication date: May 14th, 2019

Pages: 352

My rating:

Danny didn’t know what she was looking for when she and her mother spread out a map of the United States and Danny put her finger down on Tempest, California. What she finds are the Grays: a group of friends who throw around terms like queer and witch like they’re ordinary and everyday, though they feel like an earthquake to Danny. But Danny didn’t just find the Grays. They cast a spell that calls her halfway across the country, because she has something they need: she can bring back Imogen, the most powerful of the Grays, missing since the summer night she wandered into the woods alone. But before Danny can find Imogen, she finds a dead boy with a redwood branch through his heart. Something is very wrong amid the trees and fog of the Lost Coast, and whatever it is, it can kill. Lush, eerie, and imaginative, Amy Rose Capetta’s tale overflows with the perils and power of discovery — and what it means to find your home, yourself, and your way forward.

“One girl unreachable, one girl finally here, one boy dead.”

I was super excited about this book because I’m always down for a good witchy novel, and since the ones I’ve read before weren’t as I pictured or had in mind, I’m still on the hunt for the perfect witchy book for me.

I have to say that one of the first things I noticed about this story was the writing. It was very flushed and descriptive, and so lyrical that fit really well with the tone set in the novel. At first it threw me a bit of because there was a lot of information and I was a bit confused about what was going on and how everything was written, but as I kept reading I started to love it more and more.

I feel like there was a lot happening but nothing really happened that made the plot keep going until half way through. It had a lot of POVs and jumps from present to past that I think sometimes didn’t add anything to the plot but only so the reader could know more about the different relationships between some of the characters. I enjoyed some perspectives more than others, but at times I just got confused because there were all these scenes and jumps that I couldn’t really distinguish what was going on.

Regarding the characters I feel they needed a bit more work. Though I loved the representation of all these girls and I think their friendship was so precious and incredibly tight, it’s true that I found that some characters were more complex and distinguishable than others. There were some of the girls that I kept mistaking from one another, and the ones that I feel we got a lot more information to create a picture of them in our heads were Danny, Rush and Imogen. However, I really enjoyed the interactions between Rush and Danny, and overall the dynamics of their relationship and the romance.

“It takes longer than anyone will admit, to grow into who they are, to feel it deeper than skin, to know. It is easier than they believe to forget.”

The atmosphere pf the book was amazing and one of my favorite things. Throughout the entire novel I had this sense of anticipation and mysteriousness that kept me wanting to know what happened with Imogen and how everything tied up. The descriptions were very lyrical and whimsical, and the tone fit so well with how eerie everything appeared.

However, even though I had some issues with the pacing of the story and how slow and uneventful it felt during the first half of the novel, the second half was absolutely amazing. There were some little twists and turns that kept me seat the edge of my seat and wanting to know what was going to happen next, and not only that but I feel we got some answers to questions that affected the plot, and that the book became much fast paced and entertaining. I feel the climax of the story was really well done, and the ending too.

Overall, it was a solid book and though it took a bit for the story to start being interesting, I ended up really enjoying the ending and the second part of the book more than the first one, and even though there are some things that could have been more descriptive and the characters could have been more complex, it was s whimsical story.

“They know what happens in sunlight and darkness, and what slides through the spaces between. Magic is moving fast tonight. Some of it is trapped in human bodies.”

TW: talking about homophobia, death, manipulation, murder.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This doesn’t change my opinion whatsoever. All thoughts are my own.