If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch Review

Hey, what do you know? I read a YA book!

I’m sure by now y’all are a little tired of romance novels. I have decided to diversify my reading in 2014!

I usually have 3 or 4 YA novels checked out, especially since I belong to the FYA book club.

Whether or not I actually read them remains to be seen…

But 2014 is a new year and I’m turning over a new leaf. I do a lot of YA book talking at my library. Even though I’m the Reference Librarian, I have read tons of YA, so patrons ask me about it. I have several patrons that regularly come to me for YA recommendations. Well, I’m running low on recommendations now!

How I found out about If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch: A friend of mine who reads YA like it is going out of style added it on Goodreads. I saw it in my feed and thought the synopsis had a lot of potential.

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.

If You Fine Me is a quick read and impossible to put down until you are finished. I read it in one sitting, even though I told myself I was only going to read 75 pages before bed. Ha!

I thought Murdoch did a beautiful job of handling difficult situations. She didn’t use a lot of vulgarity to describe the situations and I thought this was refreshing and just right for Carey’s story.

Carey’s story is heartbreaking, there is no doubt about that, but I enjoyed how Carey grew to learn about trust and love. Reading about how Carey deals with being forced into a new world and with the loss of the woods is a poignant growth throughout the story.  I thought I knew where the ending was going, but Murdoch surprised me. Though this is a stand alone novel, it has the potential for a sequel. If you have the opportunity to read If You Find Me, you will not be disappointed.