Review: If You Find Me

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Please be aware that this review contains spoilers. 

“We make attachments to what's familiar. We find the beauty, even in the lack. That's human. We make the best of what we're given.”


On the outside, If You Find Me seems like quite a simple story – two sisters living in an abandoned camper in the woods, their drug addict mother disappears, they are ‘rescued’ by the older girl’s father and live happily ever after. From the blurb, that’s what I expected to happen. Instead, this book took me on a kind of emotional journey that happens relatively rarely to me.

This book was so much heavier than the YA fiction I usually read. It was not a fun book, it was not a pretty book, it was not a light-hearted boy-meets-girl romance. At times it was difficult to read, but I think that makes it even more endearing.

It took me a few chapters to really get into it because the writing style is so unusual. I can’t say what about it was unusual, just that it was. I think it fits the story perfectly though.

Anyone who knows me well will know that I am a huge fan of thorough character development and back stories. Whilst this book was not perfect in this respect, there was enough to satisfy me. I would have liked to know more about Melissa and Delaney’s history and how they came to live with Carey’s father. The amount of back story for the main characters (particularly Carey), however, made up for this. I did think all the characters were well developed and stayed ‘true’ to the way they had been painted (even Delaney – I found it obvious from the beginning the reason why she was so bitter) – something which I often feel a lot of YA fiction does badly.

The raw emotion in this book was what really made me fall in love with it though. You could really feel the pain radiating from Carey. The book painted an interesting picture of child abuse and neglect and I felt that the Stockholm Syndrome vibe it had going on was real and believable. It stands to reason that Carey and Jenessa would hold such an affinity to their mother (even though she hurts them), as she has been the only adult influence in their life that they can remember. It broke my heart that Carey seemed to think some of the things that her mother did to her or made her do were normal.

I managed to hold my tears back until the part where Ryan tells Carey that they knew each other when they were children. Oh god, all the feels came rushing out! And then the tears didn’t stop until I reached the end. I didn’t feel that Ryan as a love interest ruined the book at all. I think it added to it and I think it is plausible that Carey would trust him – he’s a part of her past in a time in which her life was semi-decent. Obviously Carey would ‘cling’ to that.

All-in-all, this is a brilliant read. If you are looking for a YA book that is a bit more hard-hitting then this might be the book for you.

UPDATE 06/04/14:

I bought the paperback edition (I was reading it on Kindle before) because 1. I loved it that much and 2. it had an epilogue that wasn't included in the ebook. I have all the feels, the epilogue was beautiful! :)



View all my reviews