Let's Get Lost, by Adi Alsaid

The lives of five very different teens have their lives transformed in Adi Alsaid's Teen Top Ten-nominated novel Let's Get Lost.

Leila is traveling 4,000+ miles across the country on her way to Alaska to witness the Northern Lights. On her way, Leila encounters Hudson, Bree, Elliot, and Sonia. Each teen is at a crossroad in his or her life and, by spending a brief time with Leila, is pushed in a certain direction they may or may not have taken otherwise. Sometimes that's a good thing. Other times not so much. No spoilers here, but the general twist is that Leila is even more lost than any of the others she encounters. Basically, her life is a mess, and she hopes that witnessing the Northern Lights will reveal her life's purpose and steer her on the right path. There's lots more to it, but you'll have to read the book to find out. 

Let's Get Lost reads more like a short story collection than a novel, but a collection where the stories are tied together by a common thread. So it's kind of choppy.

That said, Let's Get Lost is one of those books that, unfortunately, just didn't "click" with me. The characters didn't feel believable, the situations often felt contrived, and the twist felt like a last-ditch, from-left-field effort to give the story direction (it didn't work for me). Moreover, I often found myself getting angry with Leila for further screwing up the lives of all the people she encountered. That, I think, prevented me from sympathizing with her. Readers will have to suspend a certain amount of belief to get through this one.

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--AJB