I Have Lost My Way by Gayle Forman

“As I gradually restore Words Like Silver to its archive of reviews written between 2011 and 2024, I'll aim to first and foremost make my reading history explorable by publishing the blurbs and short reflections as books cross my mind, with the goal of eventually transferring and fleshing out the original WLS content. For now, please enjoy this brief spotlight.”

A fateful accident draws three strangers together over the course of a single day:

Freya who has lost her voice while recording her debut album.
Harun who is making plans to run away from everyone he has ever loved.
Nathaniel who has just arrived in New York City with a backpack, a desperate plan, and nothing left to lose.

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As the day progresses, their secrets start to unravel and they begin to understand that the way out of their own loss might just lie in help­ing the others out of theirs.

An emotionally cathartic story of losing love, finding love, and dis­covering the person you are meant to be, I Have Lost My Way is best­selling author Gayle Forman at her finest.

"A beautifully written love song to every young person who has ever moved through fear and found themselves on the other side." - Jacqueline Woodson, bestselling author of
Brown Girl Dreaming

As a whole, I Have Lost My Way is relatively minimal — a stripped-down read that feels both mature and quiet. Gayle Forman’s taste as a writer seems to err towards being quieter and quieter with each release. I’m not sure I would love it as much if it didn’t feel so searingly relevant to the questions I have about transition and change. It’s a beautiful, simple read.

The synopsis doesn’t do it justice, but I Have Lost My Way is a novel that takes place over the course of a day — which to me is a HUGE aspect of the book. I don’t normally enjoy the compressed nature of storylines that occur so quickly because I crave history as a reader. Forman pulls it off. Because of this condition, I Have Lost My Way feels like a quick read, which complements the bareness of the story; if it felt longer, I’m not sure it would be successful.

First of all, I love exceptionally talented or determined characters. Give me someone who has poured their entire life into a singular pursuit; prodigies are my favorite. Freya fits this to a tee, and complicates it with a tender insecurity: is she lovable without her talent? How much of her is wrapped up into what she does? (There’s not a great answer for this, and Forman doesn’t attempt to cobble one together, which I appreciate. It’s just an underlying texture of the narrative.) I found her to be well-balanced in a way that I deeply appreciated.

Harun and Nathaniel were complicated. Harun dealt with an angsty, secret relationship that punctuated the narrative with consistent heartache. Nathaniel had a backstory that got to me more than either of the other characters. His felt more like a mystery, unfolding in ways that were shocking and illuminative. Forman did a fantastic job of stitching together details about him in the present day by revealing the emotional circumstances responsible for each one.

Honestly, I didn’t feel as connected to her characters in this book as I’ve felt in her others — perhaps that’s an unfair standard — and some of that is likely due to the book occurring in third person. (I infinitely prefer the first person point-of-view.) But I still feel protective over them in the sense that each of them were well-constructed and persistent; each felt dynamic and compelling in their own way.

It’s a momentary read. Its value is in small flashbacks and anecdotes that contain a certain warmth, and the way in which it fleshes out the randomness of how their paths cross. The synopsis is accurate in the sense that it characterizes the emphasis on empathy that pervades the narrative. Everything was complicated in the sense that everyone has so much going on at a given moment, and a mix of devastation and happiness in their past that spurred them forward. Everything was simple in the sense that each of them were just making it through the day, relatively okay and confused.

I think that in general complexity and simplicity are completely artificial constructs and aren’t actually helpful (or accurate) when you try and describe elements in your daily life using them. Everything’s just as complicated or as simple as you say it is. That question, or thought, is an idea that I Have Lost My Way completely nails, so I liked that I could develop my thoughts using the layers of each character’s experiences.

Although I’m sure Forman’s writing glows in the same way it does in her previous books, which I’ve praised for their prose, I didn’t particularly notice it in I Have Lost My Way. There’s something equally relevant to be said about writing that fades into the background because it creates a seamless story.

This is a read that’s taken me awhile to get around to reading — it’s plain in a way that’s mitigated by Gayle Forman’s star power as a writer. (I’m not sure I would have found so much to like about it if I weren’t familiar with her work.)

Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, its subtlety is effective for me because of the nature of the questions that she asked. It’s a character-focused, relatively plotless read — the main conflict being Freya falling on Nathaniel. The trio keeps each other company through a somewhat mundane day at the clinic, and walks around the city contemplating their lives. In any other book, I wouldn’t have liked that, but it works.

It doesn’t feel young adult; I absolutely thought it was a relatively ambiguous adult read until a line mentioned that Nathaniel was nineteen. It feels vague in those ways.

In some ways, I Have Lost My Way could appeal to many because it’s so nonspecific. In other ways, I’ll be careful about who I recommend it to — I could see some of my peers, who are navigating similar questions about identity and the future, liking it. But you definitely have to be able to appreciate quiet stories whose value is in simply depicting several multifaceted people. It’s not much else, but it’s lovely.