The Lost Spectacular

By Zoe Duhaime
** Publication Date 29 September 2026 **
3 stars


I wanted to love this book, truly I did. It is a book about books. It has all the elements of a fairy tale. It has a likable female main character and an insufferable male main character. It is about love and loss. It sounds perfect.


Noon, rather June Clara Bonaventure, is a young woman who grew up in a home in a land not unlike Montreal. Noon, with her mother, Elizabeth, and father, Arial, lived on the third floor. Below them lived Munro Forrest with his mothers, Esperanza and Anjali. On the first floor was Vermillion Forrest, know to all as Millie. Millie owned a bookstore, La Tobaggane, which was where Noon and Munro developed their love of books.


One night they sneak off after Millie and encounter a circus like none other, known as the Spectacular. The Spectacular was a place of immortal people who lived through stories, literally. They entered and exited the real world through stories. Lukjøe was their Captain, and he organized and ran the Spectaculars, including who was invited. Munro and Noon likely shouldn’t have seen what they did, but it fascinated them endlessly. Enough that it becomes Munro’s passion to find it. 


Later in life, when Noon is forced to close her beloved bookstore, she ends up becoming part of the Spectacular, while Munro is a curator of a very unusual museum. Munro has never given up his need to trap the Spectacular, and when he realizes Noon is a part of it, it becomes his complete obsession.


This book was rambling and incoherent for much of the beginning. I didn’t understand anything until well through 20% of it, when I started to put the pieces together. Noon is wonderful. She has a laissez-faire way of dealing with life and loss. Munro, as I’ve said, is not someone very likable. Once you piece together the bits, it really does have some beautiful qualities. The love of books, the jumping through stories, the unusual museum. Duhaime writes with a beautiful hand, but the strings needed to be tied up a tad more cleanly. I’m not sorry I read it, I just wish it had been a bit more coherent. 


Might recommend, might not. It’s both good, and not so good, but it was interesting.