The Lost Boys of Montauk by Amanda M. Fairbanks
(2021) 313 pages

I originally began to read this book because of my AP Language summer assignment, but after a while I began to be sucked into the story. It gave me a brand new perspective on what Long Island is like, especially 40 years ago when the rich and the sophisticated resided in the large estates that sell for around 10 million US dollars today. I also enjoyed reading how the author was able to weave so many different stories, all with different people, backgrounds, and perspectives, into one singular one that tells the tale of four men lost at sea on the Wind Blown during a horrible storm. At first I believed that this story would just be about the struggles of the four men during the storm and how they died together, but it isn’t. In fact, it barely focuses on the fact. It focuses more so on what led up to that situation, and what happened to everyone the boys have ever met and loved after their deaths. This is something that I thought to be a bit.. boring, for a lack of better words, at first, but soon I was hooked on the story and the fact that all of this happened just down the island from my home. It also, surprisingly, gave me insight on some of my future career choices and also inspired me to think about life in a whole new way. Of course there are some parts of the story that are especially touching, and there have been times in which I had to physically put the book down because the words on the page were so unbelievable. Overall this book may seem like a tedious read at first, but soon you will become hooked to all the different characters, although sometimes the names do get a bit confusing, and their stories that are interconnected even to this day.