Book Review by Toby Clark

Written by: Cathy Hapka

This book is a tie-in to Lost the TV show. It is set during the first two days on the island (September 22-23rd 2004) as well as in flashbacks several months before the crash. The focus is on environmentalist Faith Harrington, her ex-boyfriend Oscar Wolfe and potential future boyfriend George, with brief appearances by all 14 main survivors.

Faith lands on the island in a similar fashion to Dr. Jack Shepherd; she wakes up somewhere in the jungle and runs to the beach to find the wreckage of the plane. She meets George, a real estate developer, who convinces her to help him with rescuing luggage.
Over the following 24 hours, Faith and George clash repeatedly about the importance of the local wildlife, culminating in an intense showdown between Faith, George and a death adder.

Meanwhile, Faith flashes back to the events that led her to Australia; joining a protest group against her former PhD advisor, Dr Luis Arreglo’s decision to support a development in the Amazon Basin. Faith’s groups of radicals, including Oscar, are offered tickets to Australia if they picket at the corporation. But when Faith begins to realize that Arreglo’s decision wasn’t bad as she first thought, it brings out a frightening new side to Oscar.

When I compared this book to the pilot TV episode, it is noticeable that Faith is never on the screen. Not surprising, but it is annoyingly convenient that she doesn’t appear in any part of the beach that the camera is currently on. She meets Hurley and Claire only after Jack has saved them from the plane wing and left, she is talking to Sawyer seconds before the monster is heard but Sawyer is not seen during this moment in the episode ect.

On the other hand, it shows a great deal of attention by the author to the events of the pilot, in the way she inserts previously unnamed and irrelevant characters into the action. This is comparable to Forrest Gump, which digitally inserts Tom Hanks into the newscast of an event he was apparently present at. The flashbacks of Oscar and Arreglo are also fascinating, as revealing as Jack’s or Kate’s. This book series could go a long way to giving recognition to all the previously unnamed survivors, I look forward to the sequel. I give this book 3 and a half stars out of 5