The Losting Fountain / Lora Senf / Book Review

THE LOSTING FOUNTAIN

There's something calling to Ember, Miles, and Sam. Calling across decades. Calling through dark waters, watery graves. Something claiming to be their home, though none of them have ever been there before. The Fountain wants them to come.

The Fountain houses all the losting things, the things lost and dearly missed. The things that people want back. If they're lucky, seekers will find the Fountain and be reunited with what they've lost... if they can resist the temptation of the treasures that it holds. And if they can't, well, the Fountain is home to all manner of losting souls, those it won't ever let go.

There's a delicate balance between the Fountain's treasures and its justice, a balance upheld by the Jury. But the Jury has gone missing, and her days are dwindling anyhow. A new Jury must be sought, before the balance is upended. Before the Fountain and its consequences leak out of its idyllic isle and into more wheres and whens than anyone could hope to know.

THOUGHTS

This book was a real disappointment to me, because I loved all of the pieces of it. But I don't think those pieces pulled together into a coherent enough picture. There were too many good pieces. It was a lot for the author to juggle, and I think the story gets a little confused in all of its moving pieces. I can absolutely see why someone would love this dark fantasy world, but it just didn't come together for me.

PROS

Wickedly Creative	For all that I didn't like the final product, Lora Senf's creation here is wickedly creative. The island with its burbling spring, its endlessly deep Fountain of losting objects. The distorted creatures living in the depths--and sometimes breaking through to our own reality. The winged guardians like guardian angels. The entanglement of whens that bring people together across time and space. I think all of these pieces are really great.
Deadly Consequences	Too many "dark" YA fantasies I've read recently have shied away from actual consequences, so it's nice to read a book that lets characters die. There are deadly repercussions in this book. There is bloodshed, and not just for minor characters. There are things these protagonists can't stop, and there are deaths that feel senseless and demoralizing in a way that really adds to the gripping nature of this plot.
Pro Writing	On a sentence level, Lora Senf's writing is really, really good. It's well-crafted. It's carefully detailed and considered. For all my problems with this book, the writing itself is not an actual issue (which is rather rare, in books that I don't enjoy). This book would have been much worse without Lora Senf's skill with the written word, and I can appreciate that.

CONS

There are a lot of characters here, right off the bat, and we're switching perspectives, too. While these perspectives do manage to get their footing, it is a lot to swallow so early on in the book, and that made it hard to get invested in any one character. I didn't get to spend enough consistent time with any of them to really feel their struggle, at least at the start, and that made for a less-than-exciting introduction to this world.	Character Struggles
I usually love a book that skips around timelines--or, even better, brings together characters from vastly different times and places. So this book should have been right up my alley. But as well crafted as this book is, I do think the whens detail gets lost. Even though the characters have their own perspective chapters, the differences in their upbringings--in their time of origin--gets lost in the writing. It is very easy--too easy--to forget that they're not all 21st Century kids. And that's a real shame. I wanted to get invested in their different times and what growing up in those different decades (and centuries) brings to the characters. But it really didn't make much of a difference in the overall story. The story was too large, and these little details that could have helped me to get invested into the characters themselves got lost.	Time Travel Woes
I think my biggest problem overall is that this book is trying to do so much that I lost track of what I was supposed to be rooting for, interested in, or concerned about. The pieces were great, but they didn't come together. They got lost in each other. With so many moving parts, it was hard to get invested in these characters, and I think that these characters could have (and should have) really carried the story. The plot is too big, and the characters are too small. Ultimately, the twists and the deaths and the revelations weren't as interesting to me because I wasn't invested in these kids. And that's a shame, because I think there was so much potential here that I just wasn't tapping into.	Too Creative

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐
4/10

Fans of B.E. Maxwell's The Faerie Door will like this world of dangerous magics and conflicting time periods. Those who enjoyed Brandon Mull's A World Without Heroes will like following these kids as they're pulled into a fate much bigger than they could have dreamed.

Details Publisher: Union Square Kids Date: December 31, 2024 Series: NAME Add to Goodreads Buy it HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.