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.
Now, when I first received a copy of this book, I was a little scared to read it for fear that it was going to be a story written in the perspective of a feral child, and those stories tend to always upset me. But, Murdoch did something completely different and something incredibly poignant.
If You Find Me is much more complex than the synopsis implies, and it really is a story of grief, acceptance, and adaptation. While the reader spends very little time with Carey and Nessa in their home in the woods, their life and experiences there are very prevalent to both of their journeys when trying to adapt and become part of a “real” family.
I think the thing that impressed me the most about Murdoch’s excellently written novel is the proper application of the Kubler-Ross model of grieving, or, more commonly known as the 5 stages of grief. The theory states that a person grieving a death will supposedly go through 5 different stages in order to accept the traumatic event: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally, Acceptance.
I’m going to provide examples for each, but try not to give anything specific away about the plot:
Kubler-Ross Model
5 Stages of Grief
1. Denial: “Life isn’t like this!” Refusing to call her father anything besides sir.
2. Anger: Anger at her mother and at life in the woods, anger at Ryan when he shows her the picture (read the book and you will understand this part!)
3. Bargaining: Praying to St. Joseph, “If you keep shorty alive,” she promises she will tell her secret.
4. Depression: Depression over leaving the woods, constantly missing them and missing “the girl from the woods” (the girl she used to be)
5. Acceptance: Finally telling the whole story, and knowing that her father and stepmother will be there for her throughout the rest of her life, etc.
There are even more examples of these, but I really would rather you go out and buy a copy of this wonderful novel, and support this debut author!
5 Bards for If You Find Me being heartbreaking, heartwarming, and amazing. I just wish it had been longer!
Moving! 