MixedThe Santa Fe New Mexican... a self-consciously literary novel ... Luiselli is a deeply granular writer who tends to break every image down into component parts and give the weight of philosophy to passing observations, yet this choice to have the mother refer to her children only as \'the boy\' and \'the girl\' makes her love for them—and their very existence—seem theoretical. It is the first but not the primary flaw in a novel that has all the trappings of a good story with rich characters, yet reads like an extended writing exercise about the creative process and authenticity ... Luiselli treats the Others, as she does her main characters, as if they are mere ideas rather than whole human beings. The novel has a somewhat complicated structure, with long sections broken up into fragments that read like a cross between short chapters and prose poetry ... Lost Children Archive’s potential is buried under unnecessary literary experimentalism, almost all of which could be stripped away without losing the story’s heart or momentum.
