Reviews

Come and Find Me by Hallie Ephron

endlessreader's review

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3.0

Come and Find Me was one of those books that has a fantastic premise. I freely admit that I’m intrigued by the whole avatar and alternate internet world thing. It’s one of those things I’d try if I wasn’t 100 percent sure that it’s a colossal waste of money. If it was free, I’d totally try it out because it does seem kind of cool to my geeky-somewhat techy girl self. So, Come and Find Me seemed like it was right up my alley with the whole avatar thing AND the mystery of the missing sister (cause I just love me some mysteries). And the book was good…at the beginning. After I hit the 50 percent mark, I was kinda…thrown. And not in that good way.

Let’s start with the good: Again, the virtual reality thing is something that I find interesting. I thought it was very nicely done (if a little improbable) in Come and Find Me. While I’m only somewhat techy, I wasn’t completely lost by the more intense technical aspects of how virtual reality comes to be. It also remained intriguing through the whole novel and not something that I felt got thrown by the wayside after a while the other things did (more on that later).

Another good thing: the relationship between Diana and Ashley. Good lord, I’m a total sucker for a sister relationship that’s not all pettiness and jealousy! That seems to be sort of the norm in fiction today. Luckily for me, the relationship between Diana and Ashley was really heartwarming and I loved it. I may have even said “They are so cute!” once or twice (or three times). I think that was what saved the Come and Find Me for me (and brought it up one star than my original assessment after I finished the book).

The not so good: Coming back to things being thrown by the wayside, I feel like that’s what happened with Ashley’s kidnapping plot. One minute it was there…the next minute it was somewhat resolved, very anticlimactically might I add, and then the book ceases to become as thrilling and heart-pounding as it was prior to it being resolved. That might have been okay if there wasn’t like 40% more of Come and Find Me left. I felt like after that the book was somewhat disjointed. There were plot points and twists coming up left and right, that if I think too much about them, I might be able to drive a van (if I had one) through the plot holes and inconsistencies. Don’t want to spoil it, so I’m just going to say that the first half was definitely better than the second half.

Overall, I thought that Come and Find Me was just okay. It did have a few good things going for it and even when it wasn’t as heart-pounding as it previously was, it was still a compulsive page-turner. So, I give it 3 stars.

mikedeab63's review against another edition

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3.0

After a nice, claustrophobic start and a unique setting (mostly online world), this book sort of fell flat for me in the second half. Ephron has a nicely defined and fresh protagonist and does a good job showing how and why she's adopted this reclusive lifestyle, but I could have read more about the rest of the characters.

I also would have liked a little more on the antagonists. The mostly off screen Big Bad feels a little odd given what we've been told previously. The motive is great and timely and fits what we know about the antagonists, but I wish it had come through more organically in the narrative than just stated between characters in the midst of the conclusion.

unsweettea's review against another edition

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3.0

Very good, very creepy; it definitely makes you think about online security! But I ended up just feeling very sorry for Diana, even though she wins out in the end. What a tremendous betrayal; how would you ever trust anyone again? The two "villains" were very believable; you can just see those sorts of determined, almost obsessed, characters doing what they did, and thinking they were somehow doing the right thing. My only quibbles were that it seemed like all the male characters were bad (except for that one police officer, who was nice but not really much help) and the female ones were good; it gave the story at the end a 'girls against boys' feel. And it seemed like Diana got over a serious phobia pretty damn quickly. But on the whole the book was very entertaining.
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