If You Find Me
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
What happens in the woods, stays in the woods. . .
Carey is keeping a terrible secret. If she tells, it could destroy her future. If she doesn't, will she ever be free?
For almost as long as she can remember, Carey has lived in a camper van in the heart of the woods with her drug-addicted mother and six-year-old sister, Jenessa. Her mother routinely disappears for weeks at a time, leaving the girls to cope alone. Survival is Carey's only priority - until strangers arrive and everything changes . . .
Jenny Downham, author of BEFORE I DIE, says that IF YOU FIND ME is "a beautiful book about survival, identity, family, love and so much more."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Many years ago, 14-year-old Carey and her younger sister, Nessa, were kidnapped, hidden in the backwoods of Tennessee, and raised apart from society by their meth-addicted mother. After having abandoned the girls for months, she contacts the girls' father, who rescues them from the trailer where they've been living on their own, whisking them away to his gorgeous home, his understanding new wife, and her less understanding daughter. Murdoch's debut is poetic and beautifully written, and therein lies part of the problem. Carey's narration wavers between the gaps caused by her isolated upbringing and moments of beyond-her-years brilliance ("handburgers" and fries are a mystery, yet she tests two grades ahead of her age and often delivers lines like, "I duck my head and smile, unmoored by the flood of unexpected emotion"). Add in Carey's model-level beauty and virtuosity as a violinist, and the novel's sense of realism takes a hit. That said, Carey and Nessa's story is memorable and deeply moving, and readers will find it very easy to fall in love with these girls. Ages 12 up.
