Living in the middle of time and space, trying to save memories
Book review: The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso
The Book of Lost Hours by Haley Gelfuso
Published: August 26, 2025 by Atria Books
Buy this book at: Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Bookshop.org
Synopsis:
Enter the time space, a soaring library filled with books containing the memories of those have passed and accessed only by specially made watches once passed from father to son—but mostly now in government hands. This is where eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy finds herself trapped in 1938, waiting for her watchmaker father to return for her. When he doesn’t, she grows up among the books and specters, able to see the world only by sifting through the memories of those who came before her. As she realizes that government agents are entering the time space to destroy books and maintain their preferred version of history, she sets about saving these scraps in her own volume of memories. Until the appearance of an American spy named Ernest Duquesne in 1949 offers her a glimpse of the world she left behind, setting her on a course to change history and possibly the time space itself.
In 1965, sixteen-year-old Amelia Duquesne is mourning the disappearance of her uncle Ernest when an enigmatic CIA agent approaches her to enlist her help in tracking down a book of memories her uncle had once sought. But when Amelia visits the time space for the first time, she realizes that the past—and the truth—might not be as linear as she’d like to believe.
The Book of Lost Hours explores time, memory, and what we sacrifice to protect those we love.
Rating:
Review:
Somewhere in this book is a fantastic epic novel about time and memory, but somehow it never materialized. It was beautifully written and I could see the vision but the entire things was underwhelming. You have this setting of a beautiful astral library that houses the memories of the world outside of time and space, but it is only described briefly and under utilized.
Lisavet started as a fabulous character with great motives. I understood her completely and I empathized with her mission to save memories from destruction. This was the best part of the book and frankly the beginning half deserves 5 stars. I was enthralled into this mystery of why people were destroying memories and how Lisavet was going to stop them!
Somewhere around the halfway point an event happens in Lisavet’s life that changes everything and the entire momentum of the book changed. This determined saver of memories was all of a sudden out there destroying memories left and right while being hunted by time agents for…reasons. Honestly, I never really understood the reasons that these time agents had for their actions. Even when they explain it’s a vague explanation about stopping dangerous ideas or something like that. Then add in competing narratives about Americans, Russians and somehow it all connects back to Hitler and World War II. It was confusing and underwhelming. I didn’t buy into it and so I focused on Lisavet’s personal story instead. But, as I mentioned, this went off the rails too. I no longer understood her motives or her actions. I wasn’t convinced it was necessary and so it was boring.
Ultimately there was a great start of a story here but unfortunately the rest didn’t live up to its promise.