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A review by librarysue
Where You Can Find Me by Sheri Joseph
4.0
A well-written novel that takes a Jodi Picoult-type current controversy theme (a boy returned to his family some years after being abducted by a pedophile) and gives us a great deal to think about. I found it a particularly poignant read in light of the recent barrage of publicity about the young women who were found in Cleveland, Ohio after 10 years in captivity. There is no mistaking the impact of our insatiable media on people in this sort of spotlight, or the challenges of those trying to readjust. The novel opens as 14 year old Caleb is trying to settle in with his family. He went missing as an 11 year old, the same age his sister is now. His mother literally flees the country with him and his sister in order to try to heal.
The theme is a grim one, but I disagree with those who found it graphic: if anything, the author skates quite carefully over the details of what he might have experienced, giving the reader just the smallest taste, and that toward the very end of the book.
What she does exceptionally well is chart the inner struggles of a boy who no longer knows what is 'normal', who worries that he may have been at fault, that his family can no longer love him, who isn't sure where he belongs anymore.
She captures well the stresses on his family: a mother who threw herself into the search for her missing child so absolutely that she hardly knows how to function now that he is found; a father struggling with guilt over having 'given up' the boy for dead, a sister tippy-toeing through the minefield of all their anxieties. I sometimes lost patience with the too-modern family (I wanted to hiss "Grow up, already" at Caleb's parents, uncle and grandmother!) but it is hard to imagine how ANY of us would react in a situation as dramatic as this one.
This was a leisurely read, twisty and challenging. I found it reassuring that the author was able to give us some hope in the end: Caleb eventually finds that he DOES know where he belongs, and is able to make useful choices. There is a sense that love can heal even these astonishing wounds. People survive such ordeals and sometimes reemerge whole, if changed.
A remarkable undertaking
The theme is a grim one, but I disagree with those who found it graphic: if anything, the author skates quite carefully over the details of what he might have experienced, giving the reader just the smallest taste, and that toward the very end of the book.
What she does exceptionally well is chart the inner struggles of a boy who no longer knows what is 'normal', who worries that he may have been at fault, that his family can no longer love him, who isn't sure where he belongs anymore.
She captures well the stresses on his family: a mother who threw herself into the search for her missing child so absolutely that she hardly knows how to function now that he is found; a father struggling with guilt over having 'given up' the boy for dead, a sister tippy-toeing through the minefield of all their anxieties. I sometimes lost patience with the too-modern family (I wanted to hiss "Grow up, already" at Caleb's parents, uncle and grandmother!) but it is hard to imagine how ANY of us would react in a situation as dramatic as this one.
This was a leisurely read, twisty and challenging. I found it reassuring that the author was able to give us some hope in the end: Caleb eventually finds that he DOES know where he belongs, and is able to make useful choices. There is a sense that love can heal even these astonishing wounds. People survive such ordeals and sometimes reemerge whole, if changed.
A remarkable undertaking