This would be my introduction to the author. I was intrigued by the cover and premise of the book. Its a translated work. I liked the writing style, kept me wanting to know more. Themes of community's solidarity, resilience and hope. Overall, it was a satisfying and thought provoking read.

I ended up enjoying this gritty French social drama though it took me a little while to get into. It’s definitely worth sticking with to be rewarded with a thriller packed with drama, emotion, and brilliant characters.

Grippingly unpredictable. Be prepared to put your life on hold! Taut and tense from the first page to the closing paragraphs……loved it! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a very tense, raw and emotion filled thriller. A somewhat difficult read but one I am infinitely glad that I had the opportunity to read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.0

eleven-year-old mattia is distressed by the rage, sadness and hatred that surrounds him in the wake of the murder of saïd, a fifteen-year-old boy who was recently killed by a white cop in a violent identity check fuelled by racism. mattia didn't know saïd, but he cannot shake his story or escape his face, which is graffitied on walls across his small french neighbourhood in blood red demands for "justice".

through mattia's quick-witted first-person commentary and mehdi's contextual third-person interjections, we follow mattia as he attempts to find answers to the many unresolved questions around saïd's murder. as he juggles pulling together pieces of the puzzle with emotionally managing the adults around him— his emotionally-vacant guardian and his suicidal girlfriend, his absent mother, and his flighty sister— mattia discovers that the answers may be closer to home than he imagined.

this was my first french noir novel but i couldn't imagine it being more representative of the genre; it is poignant, dark, and so, so beautifully written. i loved mattia, and i thought it was so simultaneously disturbing and moving to witness him begin grasp the severity of long-standing oppression at his age, through his young voice.

this was a quick read— one that i found myself excited to return to every day— and although i couldn't help but feel there was something missing throughout, i wonder if that might be because i read an english translation of the original french novel.

thank you so much for the arc!

I loved the book. Very talented author, understanding and analysing human soul. Mental problems, social injustice, family problems and many more things that have impact on every person's everyday life are presented in such a touching story that fascinating you until the very last page. I
definitely will look for other books written by Cloe Mehdi.

In Les Verrières, a disadvantaged area in a small French town, a cop kills fifteen-year old Saïd during a routine identity check, bashing his skull in with a baton. The policeman is taken to Court, and acquitted, leading to street protests and further violence before, inevitably, the outrage dies down. Fifteen years later, the incident is nearly forgotten except by the people closest to the tragedy. This includes Saïd’s family, of course, but also that of the narrator and protagonist of the novel, the precocious eleven-year old Mattia. Mattia’s father, a teacher and community helper, knew Saïd and many others who, like him, found themselves victims of the police and the legal system. He was deeply affected by the event, eventually committing suicide in a mental hospital. It was there that he come to know Zéphyr, known as Zé, who despite his relatively young age, is now Mattia’s legal guardian.

But now Saïd’s story is resurfacing. In the area where he used to live, which is now making way for new development, graffiti commemorating him is sprayed every night. Mattia’s sister Gina returns from her nomadic travels. Mysterious figures are tailing Mattia, Zé and Zé’s girlfriend Gabrielle. The police are on alert. Something is up and getting ever closer to Mattia and those he loves. And it seems no one is ready to tell Mattia the truth – which he is desperate to discover by himself if necessary.

Nothing is Lost, translated from the French by Howard Curtis, is an incendiary, politically charged novel, a cry of rage against systemic racism, police violence, gentrification, conformism. It wears its radical politics on its sleeve. Cops are all corrupt, institutions – be they the courts, schools, social services or even hospitals and mental asyla – are there to oppress the weak and maintain the status quo. By the end of the book, this grim view becomes ever more nihilistic. Even the perpetrators who draw the author’s ire are, ultimately, shown to be a different sort of victim, tainted by the system they serve, “a cog in the machine”. And when the structure is unsalvageable, there is only one solution – burn it all down…

This might seem heavy fare – and it is. But Mehdi also crafts out of this hard-hitting story an exciting urban thriller, an edgy noir with memorably eccentric characters and an occasional wacky sense of humour. Cloé Mehdi is an original voice which rings out loud and clear.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2023/02/nothing-is-lost-by-cloe-mehdi.html

This one is pretty solid of its issues. It highlighted on police brutality and violence as well as racism. It haunts this one neighbourhood and they are working hard to get a closure. As I was reading through, I noticed that parenthood was discussed too. The upbringing of adopted child has its challenges & how mental health of a person were handled. Easy to understand but it is quite gloomy & slow. To me, it wasn't really memorable but I love the themes raised in it.

Nothing Is Lost is a haunting story of childhood innocence destroyed too soon by harsh reality. Mattia lives with Zé and suicidal Gabrielle. It is an extremely dark book, suicide and self harm are the main themes here, along with identity and family. Mattia deals with a whole lot of emotional torment, Zé doesnt seem much of a father but, at 24, he's still a child himself so can we blame him? Is Mattia better off in a semblance of a loving family, even if he does have to do a lot of looking after himself, than in the care system? Mattia struggles with identity in various ways, troubled by his own mental health even at such a young age, feelings of loneliness and being unwanted by his own mother, who seems to have disappeared. And then there's his loose-cannon older sister who turns up unexpectedly only to leave again without even a goodbye.

All this chaos in his life makes Mattia a very mature and sensible character. His fixation on the death of Saïd to police brutality years ago, which, we slowly find out, has more to do with Martha's circumstances than meets the eye, is in some ways the thread running throughout the book. As we learn more about Saïd's story it seems more and more likely that Mattia is searching for a sense of closure that he may never get, but an unlikely turn of events in the conclusion of this terrible but beautifully crafted novel, may change things.

I'd recommend reading more about this book before diving in, especially for those sensitive to mental health problems and suicide/self harm depictions in particular because this book features a lot of it. But it is not in a gratuitous, overwhelming sense, but looks at the reality of depression and the different forms of can take. But this is definitely a stunning read, will make you ask a lot of questions of right and wrong, and what it means to be alive.

the cover is gorgeous and the writing is riveting, i just had trouble grasping the plot and the narrative, which is a personal problem. i couldn't bring myself to care about the story or the characters, and the plot felt slow and simmering. the atmosphere was incredible but aside from that i couldn't really find it in me to care more about the story. not to say this is an anwful book though, because it is very well written for sure.

🇫🇷Nothing is Lost by Cloe Mehdi🇫🇷
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In a French banlieue, a police identity check goes wrong. The victim, Saïd, was fifteen years old. And now he is dead. This pitch-dark French noir explores the aftermath.

Mehdi takes us on an emotional journey narrated mainly by Mattia, who is just eleven years old and living in the same banlieue, an area populated mostly by immigrants, prone to poverty, racial inequality and lacking prospects for its inhabitants.

Mattia witnesses the hatred and sadness felt by those around him and spends his days trying, with limited success, to emotionally manage the adults around him - to say the family dynamics are complicated is an understatement.

While Mattia didn’t know Saïd, he knows people who did and his face can be seen all over the neighbourhood, graffitied on walls in red paint, demanding “Justice”. 

Despite the quick pacing and energy, Mehdi, with excellent character development, manages to perfectly depict a sombre and realistic view of the lives her characters live and provide insight into their many inner turmoils. Gabrielle, Zé and young Mattia will stay with me a long time.

There are excellent thriller vibes here, an underlying mystery is affecting all events, and it is revealed gradually, tantalisingly piece by piece, to eventually show how pivotal it has been in traumatising all the characters mentioned in the novel and trust me, there’s trauma aplenty to unpick.

Mattia decides to pull together the pieces of the puzzle, to try to understand what happened. Because even the dead don’t stay buried forever, and nothing is lost, ever. Will he succeed?

Medhi’s novel is a brutally raw and poignant read with plenty of twists, turns and intrigue. It is utterly captivating.

It’s difficult to say more plot-wise because, you know, spoilers, but do beware there are several potential triggering topics throughout. Suffice to say this is a book that deserves to do very well indeed. I’ll certainly be picking up more works from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an as always honest review.

First of all, my thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.
The story is about an 11 year old boy living in and around the immigrant microcosm in an unnamed French town. The story touches topics like emotional health, suicide, family and the untraditional forms it increasingly takes, growing up, and, most of all, the imbalance of power between police and young minority men in France. It is this latter point that makes this a very political novel, helping bring to the attention of the reader the French version of the reality that brought BLM to life in the US. All this is told via what is essentially a thriller, where a mystery seems to be affecting events, and we gradually find out how pivotal it has been in traumatising all the characters mentioned in the novel.
What I liked most is the pacing and energy. It's action packed, despite being a sombre and realistic depiction of life for many disenchanted youths in France. It was hard to out down, and I finished it basically in one go.
I also liked the characterisation of the protagonists. They all felt real and I finish the book feeling like I almost met them, and will cherish them for a long while. I especially found Gabrielle, Zé, and the boy to be the most lifelike and captivating. It almost feels intimate.
What I did not like was the almost teen-like negativity in this book. It permeates everything, and this nihilism is in many ways off-putting. There is a statement somewhere to the effect that things never change and it is always very bad. While I cannot claim to understand fully the lives of people in these situations, I do know that things are not always bad, life is not becoming worse, and hope exists. The answer is not taking the law into one's own hands. I wouldn't want to belabour the political aspects of this argument here, but rather point out that I found the lack of hope and the grimness of the book unnecessarily crude, and having more nuance (as ever) would have made the argument perhaps even more salient (vs the somewhat petulant style it felt to have as it was).
So all in all, I think the author is extremely talented and I can't wait to read all her other works. I also think and hope that time and age will add nuance to the anger, and make the ideas more well rounded.

PS
One minor point - there was a point in the book that the sister gave her young brother something wrapped in newspaper with Arabic writing, and this was supposedly from Turkey, where she visited prior. Turkish is written in Latin characters, someone didnt do their (basic?) research. I found this very jarring.

Absolutely heartbreaking. I can’t wait for this to come out I know so many people who will be as blown away as me that will be receiving this from me. Outstanding.

Excellent read, heartbreaking and thought provoking.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review.

An eye opener

Racism in Europe, alive and kicking. Why was I surprised? Why do I set aside this reality and find it easier to point the finger at someone further away? It's harder when it is closer to home.

Mehdi takes us on a journey with Mattia, our litte 'hero', survivor. Survive please do. He journeys through family both that of blood and that found. Through trauma and mental health problems. Life and it's repercussions, leaking all over our lives and the lives of those around us. And to cap it all a background of violence, racism, poverty and lack of opportunity.

I've never read Mehdi before and I do hope that her books are all translated in English so that I can read more.

An ARC gently provided by author/publisher via Netgalley.

Nothing Is Lost is an exceptional look at generational grief and trauma, racial inequality and mental health. Handling topics such as suicide in unflinchingly real terms without ever glamorising it.

This was a book I requested purely based on the cover and I’m so glad I did!

This was a brutal, raw and poignant read that I couldn't put down. It did the noir fiction genre really well but it felt like so much more than that too. It was chilling and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. A great read