Secret Identity

Lost #2

by Catherine Hapka

The Barnes & Noble Review
Cathy Hapka's Lost: Secret Identity, the second in an ongoing series of novels based on ABC's hit television show, revolves around Dexter Cross, one of the few survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, who is forced to deal with the mountain of lies that has brought him to this point in his miserable sham of a life.



Throughout his formative years, Dexter Stubbs was looked upon as a loser, a nerd, and a wimp. He grew up without a father, and his mother struggled to make ends meet; but Dexter's dreams of escaping a hopeless future came true when an aunt reached a lucrative settlement with a major retail chain after a dubious injury and gave him enough money to attend an Ivy League school. At college, Dexter constructed intricate lies about his family, in order to "fit in" with affluent students -- like the beautiful Daisy Ward. To preserve his relationship with Daisy, he continues lying, until it's too late for anything except disaster



While not the must intellectually challenging of story lines, these incredibly fast-paced novelizations (which also include Hapka's Lost: Endangered Species and the forthcoming Lost: Signs of Life by Frank Thompson) will appeal to fans of the show -- because while the plots focus on peripheral survivors, they also prominently feature popular main characters like Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Locke. If your favorite band is Driveshaft, if you own a T-shirt that says "Everything Happens for a Reason," or if you know the significance behind the numbers 4-8-15-16-23-42, these books are definitely for you! Paul Goat Allen

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Tv, Adult Fiction

176 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Catherine (Cathy) Hapka has written more than one hundred books for children and adults, as a ghostwriter for series as well as original titles, including the Romantic Comedies Something Borrowed, The Twelve Date of Christmas, and Love on Cue. She lives in Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[Теодор Панов]

Във втората книга сюжетът е концентриран около мъж на име Декстър (отново няма такъв в сериала). Та и неговата история продължава да си е все така скучна и неинтересна, както при Фейт от първата книга. Имаше и трета книга от тази поредица, но след тези две отчайващо слаби истории, нямах никакво желание нито да си я купувам, нито да я чета. Изобщо опитите в тези книги са много, много далеч от сериала. Пълна загуба на време.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say, I think this was the best of the three Lost novels. I remember almost nothing of the other two and I'm sure after a year or so, I'll forget everything about this one, so saying this is the best of the novels isn't saying much. As another reviewer pointed out, this is more of a 2.5 stars, rather than a straight three. Given how fast I tore through the book, I thought the bump to three was semi-warranted on my behalf, because the story wasn't unenjoyable on my part.

If I remember correctly, this story also had the most interaction with the main cast as well. As usual, though, this story centers around one of the other castaways that the main show does not focus on. These stories try to capitalize on the fact that there are forty plus castaways on the island, of which only a handful are discussed in the show. Once I got used to this fact during the first book, I was able to get into the stories a little more. I held off reading this one for a while because Hapka's first book "Endangered Species" was horrifically boring. Luckily, I found this one a lot more engaging, but still, without being able to discuss the island's mysteries or the main cast, these novels fall short and come off as very dry. Here we follow a character named Dexter who seems to have issues with lying, but we already have Kate on the island to cover a lot of these problems, so there's almost no reason to talk about Dexter or invent him. The story was interesting enough, if a bit predictable, but outside of die-hard fans of the show, I can't see people enjoying this.

The state of lost and literature seems to be a rather sad affair in my opinion. I love the island and the concept, but bringing this into the realms of literature seems to fall flat. It's actually very strange, because there is enough to write about, certainly, but I just don't think anyone can really do it justice. I feel like novelizations are something that should have been attempted after the series came to an end, instead of assaulting the public with so many products during season one. "Bad Twin" was terrible, these novels don't hold up, the video game is poorly made etc. I also think it took me a while to come to terms with the covers of these novels. Since they feature a member of the main cast, I thought the novels would be about that person, but they're not, so right from the start my expectations aren't being met.

Now that the series is completely done, novels in that universe would have made a lot more sense. Delving into the history of the island, making up more adventures from different time periods and so on would really work. But it's probably far too late for that these days. Anyway... only read if you're a die-hard fan of the show, it won't take that long to read or satisfy your curiosity. In the grand scheme of things this isn't going to add much to Lost or its lore, so you really can skip it altogether.

[Shane Kaler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Author failed to capture the mystery and intrigue that is LOST, and she has the perspective of a freshman male confused with that of a middle school girl. Dexter’s worry and torment are both unrealistic and inconsequential, so there is zero build of any tension followed by a complete lack of climax. Also, I have to point out that it shouldn’t take a writer any research, nor an editor, to know that a support beam wouldn’t be among the rubble of a plane crash. This novel is an utter… train wreck? Two stars only because I love the show and it’s mythos, so I enjoyed being back on the island and getting context around preexisting characters.

[Nathaniel Bertram · Rating 2 out of 5]

An utterly bland affair that does little with the LOST mythology and develops no real dramatic tension throughout it's brief page count. The references to LOST are rather token in the grand scheme of the story, and this could have been written in any other post-disaster setting and had the same thematic effect. It lacks both interest and impact, and, while not terribly written and still mildly entertaining, fails to capture the mystery and intrigue that made LOST such an incredible show. The dramatic structure of the book is such that we know the twists before the main character, but the reveals have so little dramatic impact that it becomes almost boring when they come to pass. It's a quick read for its brevity, not its immersion.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a 2.5 than a straight 2, but not good enough to round up to a 3. The only things I liked was the usage of the forest and the doppelgangers and working in the Marshall/Kate subplot without feeling forced. However, the entirety of Dexter's back story was boring and contrived, relied on so many stereotypical characters it was ridiculous, and Arzt seemed terribly off.

Dear LOST writers: Arzt doesn't care about your boring OCs' sob stories. Neither would Shannon, who in this part of season one when the book takes place would be far too worried about herself to care about anyone else.

Hopefully the third and last LOST tie-in novel is better.

[Reena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was lost reading this.

[Trinity · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm going to start off by saying that no matter how critical this review is, this was not a bad book.

When I saw this, I was sceptical because I detest books based on the shows. I had to get it, though, because I have a strange and unhealthy obsession with Lost and it is my favourite show.

Here are a few things you should know before reading this book:

1. It is pretty much unrelated to the show.

2. The main character is incredibly boring and is not featured in the show.

3. The rest of the original characters are bland, 2 dimensional, stereotypical characters with almost no personality.

4. There is no real plot for this book. There are a couple of vague, unfinished plot lines, but there is no real plot. It's 168 pages of nothing.

The only thing this book has going for it is that it's vaguely interesting. This book had a good potential, but sadly that was not delivered. I was slightly invested in Dexter and Daisy, no matter how bland they were, and I wanted some form of storyline/resolution. I feel like this book would have been a lot better if it was written when the show had finished.

This story was about the wrong things. It should have been about the story of Lost, but instead it was about Dexter at college and him having money troubles. The book relied too heavily on that plot, and it wasn't even interesting. Dexter talks/thinks about Daisy too much, to the point where I laughed every time she was brought up. No one cares about Daisy, really, all we care about is Jack. And Kate. And Sun and Jin, Charlie, Locke, etc. And while those characters were featured, they were either not enough like the original characters, or the author tried to hard. Michael says "man" practically after every sentence. Hurley says "dude/dudes" way too much. It also focused more on minor characters, like Scott and Steve and Joanna, rather than focusing on the main characters. Charlie was basically mentioned about 5 times, and that was briefly.

In my honest opinion, this is fanfiction. Fanfiction can be great, but it's not something that should masquerade in the form of a novel. This book just felt really amateur and unfinished, and I'm not sure if I'll read anymore books in the series. I hadn't even heard of these books before I saw this one at the op-shop. There was a glimmer of hope, maybe the next one would finish off the story? But no, all of these novels are unrelated.

In conclusion, I would not recommend this story. It isn't bad, like I said, but it's not very good, either. Actually, if you like wasting a couple of hours (if that) of your life, go ahead. But you won't be rewarded with clever writing. The majority of this book is Dexter being confused, and then working stuff out.

Examples: -on the first page or two when he is blind and can't work out why. He then realised he has a blanket on his face.
-shortly after when he practically assaults Shannon because he thinks she's Daisy.
There are more, but I've wasted enough of my time on this book already.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was actually a pretty interesting book, that just... fell apart at the end.

It was a smart idea to write novelisations based on "extra" survivors of 815 - it meant being able to interact with the characters we know and love without having to distract from their show plotlines that are generally very intricately told day by day in the show, while also being able to nod to some iconic scenes from the first season.

And those bits were done very successfully, along with a backstory that wasn't incredible but was fun enough to read.

Unfortunately what let this book down hard for me was the ambiguous supernatural element. It's hard to know whether the book was trying to lean into the island mystery (in which case it was always doomed to fail, since nobody knew any definitive answers in Season 1) or whether we were supposed to believe it was all just some sort of.... hallucination? In which case it just didn't work for me at all.

I'm intrigued to read the other two books that were published (before the whole series got axed, lol) to see if they can stick to just telling the story of some human survivors without creating a mystery that'll never be resolved.

[Sylvester Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an improvement over Ms. Hapka's first LOST-related book, Endangered Species. It suffers from some of the same failings, especially with dialog and a failure to do any real research into real-world details (such as what it's like to start out at an Ivy League university). But this time the author is much more comfortable with the material she is trying to cover. The story is better and feels more in-line with themes from the TV show. I would have liked to have seen more interaction with the characters Ms. Hapka introduced from Endangered Species, and the end is a bit unresolved (what ever happened to Daisy???). It would have been nice if the author could have continued these characters' stories in subsequent novels.

3 stars. I'm a LOST fan, so I'm a little biased.

[Halit Emin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dizide bahsedilmeyen karakterlerden biriyle ilgili kurgusal bir hikaye. Tanıdığımız karakterlerle iletişime geçiliyor ancak bu sahneler de dizide yer alan şeyler değil. Nadir anlarda bildiğimiz sahnelere gönderme yapıyor. Yani diziye pek bir katkısı yok. Az bahsedilen ama merak uyandıran karakterlerle ilgili olsa biraz daha ilgi çekici olabilirdi. İlk kitabı beğendiğim için devam ettim ama muhtemelen onu okurken de Lost'la ilgili nostalji olduğu için hoşuma gitmişti. Şimdi diziyi tekrar izlememin üzerine bu kitabı okuyunca hiç etkilenmedim. Olsa da olur olmasa da olur.

[Read1000books · Rating 3 out of 5]

On a flight from Sydney to the U.S., Oceanic Flight 815 breaks up over the Pacific, with the 48 or so survivors crash landing on an island. A very strange island...
Passenger Dexter (Cross?) Stubbs had a great thing going, fooling his mom and rich aunt, his wealthy college classmates, even his beautiful girlfriend Daisy with his lies and tales. But he soon finds out, a fabricated life will do you absolutely no good when you are...LOST!
(Knowledge of the tv series helpful, but not required to enjoy the story.)

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Lost more than anything, but while I was into the first of the three Lost tie-in books, this one didn't quite capture the mystery of the show. It doesn't help that the writing isn't in the same league, and frequently uses characters (specifically Kate & Shannon) in a way that doesn't feel authentic to the series. The side quest is also a bit juvenile (though the Aunt Paula character is very much a flashback character in the vein of the series). The best part was Sawyer's brief cameo, which felt extremely on-the-mark.

[Jadine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again, as with book #1, this character was around all the characters that I know from Lost but don't remember this person in particular, just as I felt after the first book. Jack is featured on the cover of this book and he is in the book but not the main focus. Dexter fit in with the whole Lost world though.

[Joke · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dit boek vond ik in een boekenruilkast,en omdat ik zin had in "hersenloos" leesvoer, nam ik het mee. Meer dan dat was het ook niet. Thrillen deed ik niet, boeiend was het niet, maar het bracht me twee uur verstrooiing.

[Vicky · Rating 1 out of 5]

Almost loss of time because of the boring writing. Not even close to the beat or identity of the show.

[Joe Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10

Again, similar to Endangered Species. This is a fun and intriguing read but lacks depth and connection to the main Lost series. Still enjoyable though.

[Grace Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was more fun to read than the last book. The main character wasn’t insufferable. But I thought there’d be much more of a twist at the end. Was Daisy on the plane??

[Michaela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pozerali ste seriál Stratení? O tom lietadle, čo letelo z Austrálie a padlo na nejaký divný ostrov. A ako sa lekár a plno iných ľudí snažilo prežiť. A ten ostrov bol fakt divný... No tak toto je kniha presne z toho prostredia, akurát hlavná postava je niekto iný. Nie zo seriálu. Ale stretáva tam všetkých ostatných. A možno aj Tých Druhých. Každopádne, chlapec má čo robiť sám so sebou, spomenúť si, kto vlastne je, niekoho nájsť a celkovo sa vyrovnať s pravdou a tým, kým je. Kým sa to rozbehlo, kniha v podstate aj skončila. Málo strán mala. Tuším sa tomu hovorí moment sklamaného očakávania - že niečo malo prísť a neudialo sa to. V podstate to ani nekončí uzavreto, asi tak ako seriál. (Priznám sa, že som tv seriál nedopozerala, nejako som to zabudla nahrávať a tak neviem, ako sa to skočilo. A či vôbec to skončilo.) Chcelo by to pokračovanie. Ale, na druhej strane, toto je také ideálne letné čitanie - prečítate. A to je všetko.

[Shaun Swick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rote and slight, yet for a fan of the show, still interesting. Like a lesser version of the season 3 episode "Expose," it's a chance to relive familiar scenes and characters from a new point of view.

The story leaves you wondering at the end what it was even about at the beginning, the dialogue anything but sharp... but you can hear the voices of familiar characters in their words, the chapters drift—like an episode of the show—between flashback and present, and little details (like the book's 23 chapters) show that it wasn't totally thrown together in a matter of days.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the most in-depth novel ever, especially when you consider the many layers of the TV series its based on. But a nice quick read and a welcome if not in-sightful addition to the series.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dexter Cross, poor boy who finds himself pretending to be someone else at college, is on Oceanic Flight 815

[Obaid Rahman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of curbs and turn towards the story end.