A review by charadreemurrs
Lost Laysen by Margaret Mitchell

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

I got curious if Margaret Mitchell ever wrote anything else besides that door stopper of a book, and discovered this book in the process. While I wasn’t a fan of her other infamous book, and neither am I an enjoyer of this novella that was never intended to be read by more than two people, there is some historical information contained within this book that pique my interest. Not within the novella itself but rather the 60 or so pages which proceed it, on Mitchell’s life and her adolescence and young adulthood at the dawn of the 20th century. Mitchell and her works were racist, that’s not news to anyone, and racism towards Japanese and Pacific Islanders is on full display within the fictionalized story. Even if someone can look past the racism, there’s hardly any story there, and its shortcomings reflect the age of the author and the time she lived in. It’s an incredibly short read altogether, one that took me about an hour and half, so not much time was wasted on this at the least.