- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown (3 July 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1408700883
- ISBN-13: 978-1408700884
- Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 21.5 x 2.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 332,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Lost Boys
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
James Miller's Lost Boys remained in my mind long after I turned the last page. Subject matter is essential in fiction and Miller magnificently fulfills this requirement. He is a formidable writer (Beryl Bainbridge )
A powerful, entertaining and disturbing read. (Francis Gilbert, The Times )
Miller's prose is elegant and assured (Simon Baker, Literary Review )
Sleek and shocking, this is highly intelligent cultural criticism. (WBQ )
A powerful, entertaining and disturbing read. (Francis Gilbert, The Times )
Miller's prose is elegant and assured (Simon Baker, Literary Review )
Sleek and shocking, this is highly intelligent cultural criticism. (WBQ )
Simon Baker, Literary Review
`Miller's prose is elegant and assured'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I guess I'm missing the point of this book. "Too clever for its own good" springs to mind. I know that a lot of people have discussed the deeper intellectual meaning of the book and the themes that it raises, but I found it about as thought provoking as a my navel. It was slow and tedious and do not expect any real explanation about where the boys and eventually the father actually go.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I got increasingly irritated while reading this book and almost didn't finish it, but pursued it in order to find out exactly how the author was going to wrap up the story he had started. Not sure why I bothered. Too clever for its own good it culminates in an orgiastic apocalypse and redemption finale that left me feeling cheated. I'd lingered with these stuffy, privileged unsympathetic characters for what? Loaded with obvious Peter Pan references in both characters and locations, it is an attempt to bring Barrie's ideas into a modern setting but does so with such a knowing air that it upsets the pace of the book - the reader is forced to slow with the glacial progress of the characters' thinking whilst the obvious signposts indicate the way things are heading. As the central characters muse on the events portrayed they seem to wilfully ignore the evidence that is in front of them. For example, we are expected to believe that none of them has read Peter Pan, for why else would his name never be mentioned? A child such as Timothy would surely explore the connection when confronted by a boy in green sitting in a tree outside his window (doh! who could that be?).
Topical? - well, throw disaffected youth, computer gaming, fundamentalism, oil, and a Middle Eastern back story into the pot, finishing with a fist full of sex and violence and yes there is a topicality there but again it seems very arch and knowing. Not rocket science to find interest in those areas but in the end to me it smacked of sensationalism and a way to add colour to aid the colourless characters. There is something very male-centric about this book too, despite the mother/carer/lover roles played by the females. Maybe that is to be expected in a book called Lost Boys but there is something fetishistic about the detailing of weapons or vehicles which smacks of badge-collecting and male obsessiveness. If that is the point then for me it often becomes tedious and gratuitous.
Some good writing is not enough compensation for the weariness I felt when putting this book down, an enervated feeling of having ridden on a disappointing fairground ride and thinking, is that it?
Topical? - well, throw disaffected youth, computer gaming, fundamentalism, oil, and a Middle Eastern back story into the pot, finishing with a fist full of sex and violence and yes there is a topicality there but again it seems very arch and knowing. Not rocket science to find interest in those areas but in the end to me it smacked of sensationalism and a way to add colour to aid the colourless characters. There is something very male-centric about this book too, despite the mother/carer/lover roles played by the females. Maybe that is to be expected in a book called Lost Boys but there is something fetishistic about the detailing of weapons or vehicles which smacks of badge-collecting and male obsessiveness. If that is the point then for me it often becomes tedious and gratuitous.
Some good writing is not enough compensation for the weariness I felt when putting this book down, an enervated feeling of having ridden on a disappointing fairground ride and thinking, is that it?
Format:Paperback
Such an intriguing premise, the mass disappearance of teenage boys, and so much potential to embellish Barrie's original tribute to youthful innocence and exuberance. And it started well, the dreamlike atmosphere mixed with growing mystery and menace, and yet also a sense of promise.
A shame, then, that it all descended into writing as formless and chaotic as the dystopia it portrayed. It started going downhill with a lazy authorial `tell' session via the detective's tapes, then wandered off into somewhere aimless and anarchic and never came back. So many things left unanswered and unexploited - the Captain Hook character for one. Where did he go? If you're going to create a contemporary pastiche of Peter Pan, why leave out one of its most essential elements? And what on earth was the dominatrix all about?
There was an intriguing idea in here somewhere. And some meaning. Just occasionally, as you turned the page, you would glimpse it out of the corner of the eye, the promise of something profound and significant, then a few paragraphs on you wondered if you had just imagined it. By the end, you knew you had.
A shame, then, that it all descended into writing as formless and chaotic as the dystopia it portrayed. It started going downhill with a lazy authorial `tell' session via the detective's tapes, then wandered off into somewhere aimless and anarchic and never came back. So many things left unanswered and unexploited - the Captain Hook character for one. Where did he go? If you're going to create a contemporary pastiche of Peter Pan, why leave out one of its most essential elements? And what on earth was the dominatrix all about?
There was an intriguing idea in here somewhere. And some meaning. Just occasionally, as you turned the page, you would glimpse it out of the corner of the eye, the promise of something profound and significant, then a few paragraphs on you wondered if you had just imagined it. By the end, you knew you had.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Disappointing
The book started really well - I got very interested in the book and found it difficult to put down. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Vicky
Brilliant book!
Extraordinary and very topical; disturbing and visual. I've never read a book quite like Lost Boys. Compelling - and such a vivid ending. Miller is a tremendous writer!
Published on 12 Aug 2009 by Sienna
Gripping debut novel
Refreshing, brave, beautifully written and packed with drama, LOST BOYS is the best book I've read so far this summer.
Published on 8 Aug 2009 by Roxana
The most original and unusual book to have been written so far about...
LOST BOYS, is one of the most original and unusual books to have been written so far about the Iraq war and its consequences. Read more
Published on 8 Aug 2009 by Hero M. Mackenzie
Interesting but I found it hard to care
`Lost Boys' by James Miller, not to be confused with the great 80s film starring Corey Haim (whatever happened to him?!) is set against the Iraq conflict. Read more
Published on 31 Mar 2009 by Reader
Literary fiction? I don't think so
I only didn't drown this book in the bath (where I do most of my reading) because I'm attending my first book club meeting where this sorry offering is on the table. Read more
Published on 9 Nov 2008 by disappointed
Utter Drivel
I have read hundreds of books and this looked like the sort of thing i like, modern setting, new author, contemporay themes, but as the book wore on i began to wonder whether i had... Read more
Published on 23 Sep 2008 by 23 Skidoo
Midwich Cuckooland
What a strange book. On one level it's a straight missing-child thriller, and it works reasonably well on genre fiction terms - characters are ciphers, dialogue is cloth-eared, but... Read more
Published on 5 Aug 2008 by Young Offender
From Pan to Panopticon: James Miller in Neverland
There is a great deal to discuss in James Miller's first novel "Lost Boys" but the two related themes I would like to concentrate on are power and control on the one hand and... Read more
Published on 23 July 2008 by C. Graham
Bursting the bubble
There is a reason why everyone is talking about `Lost Boys'. It's topical, sure - a tale of children vanishing, set against a backdrop of oil money and Middle Eastern conflict -... Read more
Published on 20 July 2008 by T. Bullough
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