[2][3] In August 2015 it was announced that List of the Lost would be published later that year through Penguin Books in the UK, Ireland, Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa.

[8] In The Telegraph's 1/5 star review, Charlotte Runcie wrote that "List of the Lost is terrible and, at only 118 pages, still feels overlong," going on to describe the novel as "poorly conceived, awkwardly expressed and lazily imagined.

"[13] In virtually the only at least partially positive mainstream review, writing for The Times, Melissa Katsoulis opined that "critics miss the point by dismissing it as pretentious.

Katsoulis ultimately indicated that the work is "a ludicrous gothic fantasy" that is "unreadable in places" but acts as an "antidote to all those earnest, urban epics by the graduate trainees of the literary scene."

"[14] Outside of the UK, Brazilian critic Jonatan Silva, in a review for A Escotilha, said that in List of the Lost Morrissey attempted to create a kind of pulp fiction à la Oscar Wilde, but failed in trying to connect the book with the spirit of sports and literature.

"[16] Owen Richardson of The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that "List of the Lost reads like the outcome of the perversity, or simple lack of self-awareness, that induces a writer to run with his bad qualities.