Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Infinity Lost
Fiction
For ages 13 and up
Skyscape, 2015 ISBN: 978-1503945074
One would think that it would be wonderful to be the child of the richest and perhaps the most powerful human on earth, but it is not. Richard Blackstone created a tech company that has changed the world, and his technology can be found in millions of homes, businesses, handbags, backpacks, and pockets. He has even managed to find a way to control the earth’s weather.
As his only daughter, Finn has a beautiful home to live in, but her life is a lonely one. Her mother died when she was a born, and the first and only time she met her father was on the day before her sixth birthday. In the middle of the night Richard Blackstone gave his little daughter a pendent that apparently belonged to her dead mother. Finn’s nanny was a cruel and cold person who only made the child unhappy. Thankfully Finn had Jonah, her bodyguard, who treated her with kindness and firmness.
When Finn was only three and a half Jonah came to read to her one night, as he always did, and he figured out that the child had learned to read by herself. Finn explained that her tutor was “too slow at teaching stuff.” Jonah decided that a change was needed and he took responsibility for all of Finn’s education from that moment on. Finn and Jonah became even more like a father and daughter.
Finn now goes to a boarding school and she has been doing so since she was thirteen. Soon after she turns seventeen Finn starts to have dreams at night. The strange thing is that she has never dreamed before and the dreams she is having now seem to be more like memories than dreams. Through the dreams Finn relives times in her life that really happened, but they are always different. For example in a dream she sees her six year old self being treated very cruelly by her father’s business associates. They behave as if she is an object instead of a person. She also dreams that she scares the living daylights out of those same men by firing a gun in their presence. The strange thing is that she does not remember experiencing these events and yet the dreams seem so real. Every night Finn experiences the dreams and they always leave her feeling very unsettled.
Finn does not have many friends in school, but she does have Bit, whom she is very close to. Bit is a very skilled hacker, and knowing that Finn would love to meet her father, Bit (who is the only student who knows who Finn’s real father is) hacks into the Blackstone Technologies system. She then arranges for students from her school to visit the central research and development complex of the company. Everyone is thrilled when the announcement is made. Finn is hopeful that she will get to see her father, but she is also nervous.
When the students get to the Blackstone Technologies location, they discover that the technology that has been developed by the company so far pales in comparison to the new technologies that they are still working on. Blackstone has figured out how to create matter that can morph and change and that is controlled by computer programs. Forests, dinosaurs and even a pirate ship (complete with a sea and pirates) can be created out of the substrate. The students and their chaperones are experiencing the pirate ship when the captain of the ship attacks Finn and he tries to kill her. While she is unconscious Finn has another dream and the dream helps her figure out who is behind the attack. In the process she finds out that her whole life has been a lie and that the dreams she has been having are not dreams at all.
The author of this book takes us into the life of a girl who seems to have it all, but who in fact is a helpless player in a game that is much bigger than she is. As the story unfolds we come to appreciate how trapped Finn is. One of the few people she trusts has betrayed her over and over again, and now she has to figure out how to save herself from an enemy that seems to be invincible.
