We Are Lost and Found

(Sourcebooks Fire: September 3, 2019)

  • American Library Association 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults

  • Bank Street College of Education’s Best Children’s Books of the Year

  • Texas State Tayshahs High School Reading List pick

  • Capital Choices (DC) 2020 Noteworthy Books for Children and Teens List pick

  • The Nerd Daily - Best YA Books of 2019

  • The Advocate: 30 Queer-Friendly Books for Young Adults, Kids, and Families

“ We Are Lost and Found absolutely sparkles...

...Readers who endured the ‘80s as young adults, however, might see this novel as eerily biographical: author Helene Dunbar offers sly reminders of evolving social attitudes, of the times (movie tickets: $3.50. Preposterous!), of teen friendships and love, and of the beginning of the AIDS crisis – memories that are forgotten, or best forgotten. This, she does as she so perfectly, so evocatively captures the angst, uncertainty, and shaky self-confidence of adolescence that it might make you wince.

Give this book to a 14-to-18-year-old, but be sure to borrow it back. Better yet, read it together. We Are Lost and Found is for you both, and missing it would really stink.”
-Echo Magazine, Arizona
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”The racially and religiously diverse cast, emphasis on safe sex practices, and careful maneuvering around queer plot tropes offer a compelling, teen-movie-esque portrait of the times… A painful but ultimately empowering queer history lesson.”
- Kirkus Reviews
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”Dunbar paints a broad and accurate portrait of the pain of the times through a series of emotional snapshots.”
- Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
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”It’s a certain type of magic that Helene Dunbar managed with this story... A hauntingly beautiful, yet scarring story that captures the struggles of figuring out who you are while facing the uncertainties of the world, a story that should be mandatory reading for all.”
- The Nerd Daily”
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Michael is content to live in the shadow of his best friends, James, an enigmatic teen performance artist who everyone wants and no one can have and Becky, who calls things as she sees them, while doing all she can to protect those she loves. His brother, Connor, has already been kicked out of the house for being gay and laying low seems to be his only chance to avoid the same fate.

To pass the time before graduation, Michael hangs out at The Echo where he can dance and forget about his father’s angry words, the pressures of school, and the looming threat of AIDS, a disease that everyone is talking about, but no one understands.

Then he meets Gabriel, a boy who actually sees him. A boy who, unlike seemingly everyone else in New York, is interested in him and not James. And Michael has to decide what he's willing to risk to be himself

A poignant, heartbreaking, uplifting, and compelling story about three friends coming-of-age in the early 1980's as they struggle to forge their own paths in the face of fear of the unknown.

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