If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch
If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch
The concept of this book was creative and the author did a great job of writing the characters reactions to things in this world that they had never truly experienced. You almost experience some of things along with them. So the first half of the book was really great and kept me entertained.
But then later in the second half of the book you could feel the author rushing everything, moving things along at a pace that doesn't make sense for what these two girls have gone through. Suddenly they are at school making friends or in one case having a crush on a boy. But those conversations escalate too quickly and start opening up ideas that don't seem believable. Then suddenly this secret she's been holding back is just revealed and the books ends like it's not really that big of a deal even though it really was.
The other thing that got me frustrated sometimes was the overuse of flashbacks. I understood using it to explain their times in the woods because it certainly is a flashback. But suddenly she's talking to her dad and then flashing back to something he said one or two days earlier. We could have just read that conversation as it happened, not in this odd timeline that didn't really add much to the overall writing.
Overall, I appreciated the concept and the successes this author was able to accomplish on what was probably a difficult task but I found other parts lacking.
Synopsis: There are some things you can’t leave behind…
A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys. Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go… a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.