We’re all the way up to song number ten on The Way We Fall‘s unofficial soundtrack, that being “(*Fin)” by Anberlin:

Most of the lyrics to this song don’t fit the book literally, other than the chorus with its changing phrasing: “Aren’t we all to you just lost causes?/Are we all to you lost?/All you are to them is now a lost cause/Just all of us, the lost causes/All we are is all we are.” And Kaelyn does become a sort of “patron saint of lost causes,” in her determination to find a way to help.

But mainly it’s about the mood, the feeling of desperation and hopelessness and losing faith, that Kaelyn has to fight off throughout the last section of the book (not always successfully). At times, with so many dead and still dying, and no assistance from the mainland in sight, it’s hard for anyone on the island to believe their town is more than a lost cause.