Name: Lost Lambs
Rating: 4.291666666666667 (12 reviews)

Madeline Cash

Lost Lambs

Emma Hak-Kovacs

"l'm many things: a physician, a philanthropist. I've been called an animal in the bedroom." She looked into his pointy face. If any woman had called this man an animal, surely they meant a rodent.

“This is a once-in-a-Life time offer. To see how the sausage gets made.”

Abigail had seen documentaries about the making of sausage and other meat products and it was, quite frankly, disgusting. 

“I can't feel my hands in a bad way," said Tibet. Her hands dangled limp at the ends of her wrists. "What if never feel them again? What if we never have another thumb war?”

“It’s alright,” said Abigail, “We’ve never had a thumb war.”

“We don't have money for four-hundred-dollar dresses. We have to put you and your sisters through college.”

“Who’s going to college? Abigail will marry rich, Harper will go to prison, and after high school I have to surrender my life unto God."

“So," said Bud. "My mother was crazy religious-“

“Let's not use 'crazy' as a pejorative, please," Miss Winkle interjected. 

“Right, okay, um, my mother was a batshit-insane devout lunatic who'd pray for my mortal soul if I ate store-bought peanut butter," said Bud.

Rippling with humor, warmth, and style, Lost Lambs is a new vision of the charms and pitfalls of family dysfunction. The Flynn family is coming undone. Catherine and Bud's open marriage has reached its breaking point as their daughters spiral in their own chaotic orbits: Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his twenties nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone—or something—is monitoring the town’s citizens. Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, is Paul Alabaster, a billionaire shipping magnate. Rumors of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with a mysterious shipping container sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy—one that may just bring them closer together. Irreverent and addictive, pinging between the voices of the Flynn family and those of the panorama of characters around them, Madeline Cash’s Lost Lambs is a debut novel of quick-witted observation and surprising tenderness. With Lost Lambs, Cash has crafted a family saga for the twenty-first century, all held together with crazy glue.

A Novel

LeeSa Geelhood

Really great debut! Some unexpected twists and turns. A lot of flawed people all of whom you find yourself rooting for.

Michelle Dsouza

This book is chaos, but not the careless kind. From the first few pages, Lost Lambs throws you straight into the Flynn family’s mess with zero explanation, and for a while you’re just sitting there like… what is actually happening right now? But that confusion feels intentional. The book makes a very clear promise early on: this is going to be messy, fast-moving, and driven by a family that is deeply dysfunctional but impossible to ignore. It’s not trying to be neat or controlled. It leans fully into the chaos, and for the most part, it works because there’s enough structure underneath to keep everything from falling apart. What really carried the book for me was the momentum. Even when I didn’t fully understand what was going on, I wanted to keep reading. There’s always something unresolved: secrets, bad decisions, shifting loyalties. The story keeps moving, and that constant sense of “something is off” creates tension even in the quieter moments. Character-wise, this is where the book surprised me. At the start, I was clearly rooting for Harper. She feels like the easiest way into the story. But somewhere in the middle, that shifts. You realize you’re rooting for all of them, even when they’re making questionable decisions. The Flynn family is chaotic, but they’re not hollow. They feel messy in a very human way, which makes the emotional beats land. The writing itself is super easy to get through. It’s fast, sharp, and very readable without feeling shallow. There are also moments that are unexpectedly warm, which balance out the dysfunction really well. The book deals with some heavier topics, but it doesn’t get stuck in them. It keeps things moving without losing that emotional undercurrent. If I had one issue, it’s that the book sometimes pushes the chaos a little too far. Most of it feels grounded enough to be believable, but there are moments, especially around Alabaster, where it leans more into exaggeration than it needs to. That’s where it slightly loses the balance it builds everywhere else. Still, the core of the story holds. This is one of those books that looks completely unhinged on the surface but is actually doing something quite controlled underneath. It’s messy, funny, a little wild, but also surprisingly heartwarming in parts. A chaotic family story that shouldn’t work this well, but absolutely does.

Cash has such a way with words - absolutely hilarious 

Lili

A nice read, but felt a bit rushed. Would have liked more time with the characters and smoother transitions. 

Cenedra

“I can’t remember the last time a novel made me laugh so hard or feel so much tenderness for its characters.” —Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters “Madeline Cash is a voice like no other.” —Lena Dunham “I’ve read entire books that contain less wit and inventiveness than a single one of Cash’s sentences.” —Eric Puchner, New York Times-bestselling author of Dream State “With a big surge of energy, Lost Lambs splits the nucleus of the American family.” —Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection Rippling with humor, warmth, and style, Lost Lambs is a new vision of the charms and pitfalls of family dysfunction. The Flynn family is coming undone. Catherine and Bud's open marriage has reached its breaking point as their daughters spiral in their own chaotic orbits: Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his twenties nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone—or something—is monitoring the town’s citizens. Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, is Paul Alabaster, a billionaire shipping magnate. Rumors of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with a mysterious shipping container sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy—one that may just bring them closer together. Irreverent and addictive, pinging between the voices of the Flynn family and those of the panorama of characters around them, Madeline Cash’s Lost Lambs is a debut novel of quick-witted observation and surprising tenderness. With it, Cash has crafted a family saga for the twenty-first century, all held together with crazy glue.

Grace M

Iris

Tiffany 🍒

Sarah Erle

Isobel Holmes

Mia Hamilton

Welcome to Alabaster Harbour© The three Flynn daughters - Abigail, Louise and Harper - are each rebelling towards adulthood, whilst their two Flynn parents - Bud and Catherine - just can't stop behaving like kids. It's been disastrous since Bud and Catherine opened up their marriage, and none of the Flynns can remember the last time a meal was cooked, a load of laundry was done, or a social code was abided by. Not that Catherine and Bud aren't trying - and trying new things. Bud still drives to his job at the Harbour© in the family minivan, which, yes, is also now his home, and Catherine still refuses to conform to domestic pressures - she's an artist, a woman, and no one understands her! And the girls? Surely they're fine, whatever it is they're up to. As the Flynns are each occupied by their own upheavals, Lost Lambs expands past them into a hilarious portrait of suburban dysfunction, all the way up to a nefarious local billionaire whose machinations may just - finally - bring the family closer together. This is an original, funny and compassionate portrait of the perverse pleasures and perils of our most intimate reality: our family.

Lost Lambs

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