The Department of Lost & Found - Hardcover

Scotch, Allison Winn

3.71

2,520 ratings by Goodreads

9780061161414: The Department of Lost & Found

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061161411 ISBN 13: 9780061161414

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2007

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Her ambitious life plans abruptly halted when she develops cancer, Natalie Miller struggles with the losses of control and her boyfriend while undergoing an unexpected journey of self-discovery. A first novel.

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Review:

"The Department of Lost and Found is honest, touching and funny. Winn Scotch's thoroughly engaging and optimistic debut simply sparkles!"--Claire Cook, author of Life's a Beach

"Allison Winn Scotch's thoroughly engaging and optimistic debut novel simply sparkles!"--Claire Cook, author of Life's A Beach

Editor's Choice: When [Natalie Miller's] carefully crafted life begins to crumble...she finds inspiration from unexpected people.--Redbook Magazine

"A light, fast and fun read on a serious topic."--Philadelphia Inquirer

"The changes and realizations that the characters make are profound and moving....An impressive debut."--Booklist

"With a heroine who dares to be cranky and bitchy abour her disease while still attempting to keep her 'brave' game face on. The story is real, honest, engrossing, and funny, too. Plus any book with a Bob Barker cameo is aces with me."--Valerie Frankel

Where you should read it: On the beach. It's smart and well-written, but still divertingly light.--Marie Claire

Told with humor and hope for a happier ending, this heartwarming debut will encourage readers to take stock.--Theta magazine

From the Back Cover:

In this hopeful, humorous, and astonishingly deft debut, Allison Winn Scotch explores what happens when a young woman thinks she's lost everything that matters—and ends up discovering what's truly important. This is a novel that will leave you taking stock of what's important in your own life . . . and never letting it go.

It didn't start out as the worst day of Natalie Miller's life. At thirty, she is moving up the political ladder, driven by raw ambition and ruthless determination. As the top aide to New York's powerful female senator, she works hard, stays late, and enjoys every bit of it, even if the bills she's pushing through do little to improve the lives of the senator's constituents. And if her boyfriend isn't the sexiest guy alive, at least he's a warm body to come home to.

Then he announces he's leaving. But that news is barely a blip compared to what Natalie's doctor tells her: She has breast cancer. And she can't cure it by merely being headstrong. Now the life Natalie must change is her own.

All her energy, what little of it she has left, must go into saving herself from a merciless disease. So when she's not lying on the sofa recovering from her treatments and indulging in a curious addiction to The Price Is Right, she realizes it's time to take a hard look at her choices. She begins by tracking down the five loves-of-her-life to assess what went wrong. Along the way, she questions her relationships with her friends, her parents, her colleagues, the one who got away, and, most important, with herself: Why is she so busy moving through life that she never stops to embrace it?

As Natalie sleuths out the answers to these questions, her journey of self-discovery takes her down new paths and to unexplored places. And she learns that sometimes when life is at its most unexpected, it's not what you lose that makes you who you are . . . it's what you find.

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