ARC Review: One Was Lost by Natalie D. Richards

Damaged. Deceptive. Dangerous. Darling. Are they labels or a warning? The answer could cost Sera everything.

Murder, justice, and revenge were so not a part of the plan when Sera set out on her senior camping trip. After all, hiking through the woods is supposed to be safe and uneventful.

Then one morning the group wakes up groggy, confused, and with words scrawled on their wrists: Damaged. Deceptive. Dangerous. Darling. Their supplies? Destroyed. Half their group? Gone. Their chaperone? Unconscious. Worst of all, they find four dolls acting out a murder—dolls dressed just like them.

Suddenly it’s clear; they’re being hunted. And with the only positive word on her wrist, Sera falls under suspicion…

****Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!****

I did not enjoy this book at all, which is very unfortunate considering I thought this was going to be somewhat horrifying or at least thrilling and it was neither for me. I also appear to be in the minority here, so unpopular opinion time!

So we start the book out with a bunch of high schoolers going on a camping trip when they wake up and find out they’ve all been drugged and have words written on their wrists that supposedly define them: Deceptive, Damaged, Dangerous, and Darling. Their teacher is knocked out cold and all of their supplies, including their phones, are ruined too it’s obvious someone has it out for them. It’s all so mysterious and horrible! How will they all survive? Unfortunately that’s about as exciting as it got, it’s all downhill from here.

Honestly the whole story is just a mess and was executed very poorly, I’m not even sure what the point was in half of the stuff that happened! Nothing made sense to me at all and nothing wass ever explained to my satisfaction. I found myself asking “why” a lot and never really got answers by the end of the book.

There was no horror, creepiness, or even suspense. I never once feared for their lives! This is a survival book and I never cared if any of them would actually survive or not! Also the characters didn’t make it very easy with the tremendous amount of stupid decisions they made, they could have made it out of their situation just fine if they had a few brain cells between the four of them.

And the ending? Totally predictable and anti-climatic. I could have stopped reading half way through and saved some time.

The characters were very unimpressive as well, the only character that was even mildly developed was Sera the protagonist and I say mildly because there wasn’t much. All we really know about her is: she’s in a love/hate relationship with the other character Lucas, she has mommy issues, and she’s into acting and drama. That’s about it and none of it is ever made important throughout the story, like the mommy issues what was the point?

As for the other characters Lucas has a temper and is the (non swoon-worthy)  love interest. Jude has two gay fathers whom are brought up at every opportunity (we get it, he has gay fathers why do you keep mention it?) and he acts like he’s hiding things which he never really is or if he was we never find out what. Emily is odd and obviously has some issues at home but they’re never brought up and we have no idea in the end. Overall very shallow character development and I could have cared less about any of them surviving.

The romance? Absolutely awful and pointless. You are trying to escape a murderer out in the middle of the forest by yourselves for Pete’s sake you don’t have time to get moony eyed over each other! Honestly this was supposed to be a survival book if anything and the romance definitely played a bigger part than it needed too, I swear the author was more concerned about building a romance up versus any kind of decent story.

Usually I’d try to conclude my review with what I liked and disliked but I honestly didn’t like a single thing about this book. The plot was nonsensical and boring, the characters were idiots, and the romance was just unnecessary. I’m not impressed with this book at all.

Sorry for the shorter review than normal but I just don’t have much to say about “One Was Lost” other than it was not good for me.

No absolutely not. Looking for a creepy book? This is not your book, trust me. Looking for a survival book with less surviving and more kissing? This is your book.

Links: Goodreads / Amazon / Book Depository