The Special Power of Restoring Lost T..., Courtney Elizabeth Mauk
The Special Power of Restoring Lost T..., Courtney Elizabeth Mauk
List: $9.99 | Sale: $7.00
Club: $4.99

The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things

Author: Courtney Elizabeth Mauk

Narrator: Sadie Alexandru

Unabridged: 5 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 10/01/2016


Synopsis

Set against a layered Manhattan landscape, The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things explores a fractured family through the alternating perspectives of the mother, father, and brother of a young woman during the aftermath of her disappearance. A year of silent but collective anguish culminates in the fateful thirty hours after a body with a striking resemblance to hers is found, and we see her buttoned-up Upper West Side family spiral in different, dangerous directions: Her mother, Carol, nearly comatose by day, comes alive at night in a vigilante-like attempt to track down her daughter’s killer. Her brother, Ben, once the “good kid,” adopts her bad habits along with her former friends who may have been complicit in her death. And after failing to keep his family from splitting apart, her seemingly stoic father, Drew, finally allows himself to crack.In her third novel, Courtney Elizabeth Mauk presents a nuanced character study and offers a jolting and unforgettable portrait of a family’s struggle to survive.

About Courtney Elizabeth Mauk

Courtney Elizabeth Mauk is the author of the novels Orion’s Daughters and Spark. She lives in New York City with her husband and son.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Claire Boyle on September 05, 2016

Good read but disappointing ending Another story where the main character decides to be judge, jury, and executioner. Was she really sure Marcus was Jennifer's killer??? She could have been wrong and what would that have accomplished. Glad to see Drew and Ben connected before he went any deeper. Sand......more

Goodreads review by Alesha on May 29, 2017

This book has gotten some pretty negative reviews, and I kinda get where the reviewers are coming from. But...some of the criticisms just aren't founded. Criticism #1: No family members would ever really grieve that way. Well, yes. Yes they would. Many people become destructive through trying to esc......more

Goodreads review by Lisa Bianca on July 15, 2022

First read 2016 3 stars - The style makes it an awkward read but it supports the disjointedness of the family and their separating as they deal with the possibility of loss. Second read 2022 four stars - I almost couldn't recall anything about this book but this time round I found it gripping, I rac......more

Goodreads review by Lisa on April 03, 2017

SUMMARY Jennifer has been missing for a year. She had moved away from home to the Lower East Side of New York City to get away from her demanding parents, Carol and Drew Bauer. She also left her younger brother Ben, behind. She was last seen a year ago on a security video walking out of a bar with a......more

Goodreads review by Angelika on September 18, 2016

I'm struggling with the star value to give this book. It was a difficult book to read, the disappearance of a young woman, a families worst nightmare. The story is how the remaining family members, mom, dad, and younger brother, deal with this horrible event, especially as it drags on through the mo......more


Quotes

“Can we ever let our children go? That’s the question that Courtney Elizabeth Mauk asks in her riveting novel The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things. Heartbreaking in its close observation of how each person’s grief is a world unto itself, Mauk’s novel plunges us into loss but also reveals—in tense, evocative prose—the ways grief connects us through its filaments of need. We learn what it’s like to miss something so intensely—through fragments of past conversations that mingle with the present and, in one exquisitely drawn scene, through the brushing of an absent daughter’s hair—that we can almost cross that thin, forbidden membrane that separates the living and the dead.” —Scott Blackwood, author of See How SmallThe Special Power of Restoring Lost Things is a compelling portrait of a family caught in a terrible limbo. Mauk draws her characters with insight and sensitivity, weaving a suspenseful tale of a young woman’s disappearance and the chaos and pain left in her wake. A chilling, beautiful novel.” —Cari Luna, author of The Revolution of Every Day“A wise, moving, and suspenseful tale of a New York family struggling to cope in the aftermath of trauma, The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things reveals chilling complexities of maternal love and parental loss.” —Helen Klein Ross, author of What Was MineThe Special Power of Restoring Lost Things deftly examines the emotional and psychological repercussions for a family left behind by a disappeared daughter. Courtney Elizabeth Mauk paints a powerful portrait of grief, dread, distrust, and—ultimately—redemption as mother, father, and brother try to make sense of a bereft world.” —Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, author of June and New York Times bestseller Bittersweet