Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found

Posted December 4, 2018 by shooting in Book Review / 26 Comments

Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found by Sophie Blackall

Review (add to Goodreads): Have you ever heard of the Missed Connections section on Craigslist? Basically, it’s where people go to write about a person who they could have talked to and didn’t, or where they did talk to someone but didn’t get a number. They often say where they were, what they were wearing, what they talked about, etc. The hope is that the person you are referring to will be reading these online and recognize themselves or the encounter and reach out. That doesn’t usually happen, but it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?

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Sophie Blackall came across these and found herself fascinated by the various messages that people left. She decided to start illustrating some of the missed connection stories and sharing them on her blog. It soon became a hit and Missed Connections is a book of her artwork. Each page includes the Missed Connection that was posted online along with a drawing that Sophie made depicting the encounter. A lot of the time, you can’t tell the gender of the people in the story – unless the person writing leaves their name. I liked this because it allowed Blackall to create drawings with a variety of people. Men and women, men and men, women and women. People of different backgrounds and hair color. You get it all, and it shows that anyone can have a missed connection.

While some are a bit sad, as you wish the person writing could find their missed connection, most of them are just lovely little tales with beautiful, almost whimsical, illustrations. The book is relatively short, and I wish there were more, but overall, it was a lovely book!

Read an e-library copy; all opinions are my own

26 responses to “Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found

  1. Oh my goodness this is such a cool and original story! I believe I’ve seen Sophie Blackall’s artwork before. I think she writes and illustrates picture books.
    This is very fascinated. I’m sure I’ll have a bittersweet feeling with those who don’t find their missed connections. Thanks for letting me know about this one!

    Adriana @ BooksOnHerMind recently posted: Royal Reading Challenge 2019
  2. This does sound like it was a fun and interesting read and what a fun idea! I never thought about this kind of thing before but I bet it does happen way more than we would imagine!

  3. candy

    I honestly hadn’t heard of this before and don’t go to craigslist . Now I am curious and must check everything out.

  4. This sounds like a sweet little read! I love that she put it with art! I’ll have to add this to my list. I like nice little short reads sometimes!

  5. Oh gosh. This sounds wonderful. I think we all have that moment in our lives when we see someone and wonder what if…. I just read the most fantastic book based on this idea: One Day in December.

  6. What a cool idea for a book. I’ve listened to a radio show where they read those missed connections sometimes. I’d love to look at the illustrations. They sounds really cool. Great review!

  7. Awww I would absolutely love to read this! True story: I went out with someone from Craigslist’s missed connections but it was a total dud, lol! Thanks for this review, Lauren! Adding to my list!

  8. This sounds so cute! I think it’s adorable that an illustrator started illustrating her interpretation of the Missed Connections ads. We don’t really have that kind of thing over here (I don’t even think we have Craigs List) so I find it super fascinating. Although I can imagine some of them would be sad to read about, and I know I’d find myself wishing that it hasn’t been a missed connection for them. I’ll have to see if my library has a copy of this! I think I’d enjoy it 🙂 Thanks for the lovely review, Lauren!

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