A review by joppiereading
If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

If You Find Me has some significant good points (it is clearly creatively written, has a fast-paced and engaging plot, explores important themes, and Carey is quite a lovely girl so watching her develop closer relationships with a great stepmom and her father is incredibly satisfying). It is definitely a good book if you want to read something that will keep you on the edge of your seat- though beware that it deals explicitly with child abuse. 

But, it fell a little flat for me overall.
Spoiler I'm saddened by the apparent lack of follow-up therapy for both girls after they are found. The speed with which the girls settle into normal life (though very nice) felt uncomfortably quick. Years of abuse and/or previous lives were forgotten within three months. I didn't really buy that - no matter how sweet Melissa and Dad are. And there was the easy use of (overused) tropes, like the popular mean girl (who is secretly just hurting) Delaney, the fact that Carey happens to meet and like the same boy Delly crushed on, the prodigy status Carey holds academically and musically and also socially (oh and of course she is the most beautiful girl anyone's ever seen out of a magazine, she could be a model)... it was a little much.


A final minor annoyance: The novel also starts off with a strongly accented inner voice, which Carey seemingly drops in a few pages (specifically the dropped gs, which completely disappeared quickly), even though this was apparently how she has spoken for a good ten years.
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