| Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Anonymous (Beatrice Sparks) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Prentice Hall |
| Publication date | June 1996 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 140 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0-380-78341-0 |
| OCLC Number | 34192056 |
| Dewey Decimal | 616.85/2706/0835 20 |
| LC Classification | RJ506.D4 A46 1996 |
Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life is a young adult novel by Beatrice Sparks, cited as non-fiction by her, but with no viable sources to suggest that the story, the characters, or the narrator are in any way factual. Almost Lost tells the story of Sammy, a runaway teenager who dabbles in rap, the occult, and drugs, and is turned into a happy, wholesome teen by attending therapy with Sparks.
Almost Lost was criticized by the majority of reviewers. Most agreed that the theme was fairly positive, but that the events described by the book seemed fake. The School Library Journal stated that, "It is hard to imagine that the troubled teenager described in the beginning could change so dramatically so quickly and cure his father's cocaine habit, recover from depression, and restore his parents' marriage."