The Lost Village is a loss for me

2.5 stars

This is about a documentary team lead by our main character and producer, Alice. Her crew includes: her friend and photographer (Tone), the director and her cameraman (Emmy and Robert), and Alice's helpful rich friend (Max). They are investigating the mystery of a village where a whole town disappeared in the 50's. While Alice wants her film to do well, she also wants to get answers since her grandmother was from said village. As the crew scouts the dilapidated towns the eeriness becomes hard to ignore.

The Premise: Not very original, but interesting. I wish it made more sense. They are doing a documentary and filmed nothing? Took a bunch of pictures that were acknowledged won't transition well for the film.. All in the hope of maybe uncovering the missing piece of the puzzle? Okay, I'll suspend disbelief.

The mystery is fun, especially when following along with the chapters from the past. I understand that there is a cult like element to this story, but the connections to Midsommar are misleading. It's not even that kind of horror. Besides that, I did enjoy following the past sections and trying to connect that with what we know from the present.

The Characters: Alice is the worst. I literally hated her decision making and the rationalizations she has. Half the time I couldn't tell if her and Tone were friends or just along for the ride together because of the village. Alice and Emmy's beef was ridiculous, as even in Alice's rendition of their past I felt she was being very juvenile in her anger for Emmy. And it contributed to bickering that took me out of the book.

The Story: I thought the past, present, with the addition of letters from the past was executed well. I was more interested in the past chapters, but thought parts we found out, especially about Pastor Mattias's upbringing, in the present made those chapters even more intriguing. There are a lot of mental health issues that people have in the story as well as a character who was stoned to death who we are told is mentally handicapped (this is not a spoiler- we know this from beginning).

All of the horror tropes of "you're imagining that and that sound can be explained by this.." are present. It actually adds to the flaws of Alice as all of her rationalization feels flimsy, but she is obsessed with the success of her film and will pretend everything is fine to ensure it. When the threat becomes real we get very predictable reactions from her and everyone else. The reveal is almost too much to suspend disbelief. I won't spoil which way it goes, but I will say I wish that Sten would have stuck to a clear supernatural reason or clear non supernatural reason. It makes elements from earlier in the book called into question once we have the answer.