A review by gladysreads
The Beautiful Lost by Luanne Rice

4.0

I really liked this book because Luanne Rice really shows how depression is present all the time. After she stopped taking her meds, Maia felt like she was on Cloud 9 because she was with the new found love of her life and she was really happy but she also had a few episodes of her illness seeping through. I'm really happy it wasn't one of those "they meet a person and their depression suddenly disappeared" kind of stories. Although I was kind of upset Billy left her near the end he did it because she was unstable. At that moment I felt like Maia and I were one. During that point of the story I honestly wanted to yell at Maia's parents that if they didn't leave her alone she'd kill herself even though it was irrational I felt very strong emotions at that moment. I honestly got really mad when I say that she got back to the institution but it seemed to have made her a better person.

A little thing I liked was that she talked well about French Canadians, I like the historical story about Innus (expect she wrote ta coeur instead of ton coeur, a typical mistake for English speakers). Also when black people appeared in the story she deliberately said "black people" instead of African American because 1. they were in Canada and 2. people always think it's racist or bad to call black people black but as a member of the black community we have no problem with that. At all.

In conclusion, it's a great story over all and now I have a love for whales. This is a great piece of literature.