If You Find Me

February 18, 2013
Many years ago, 14-year-old Carey and her younger sister, Nessa, were kidnapped, hidden in the backwoods of Tennessee, and raised apart from society by their meth-addicted mother. After having abandoned the girls for months, she contacts the girls’ father, who rescues them from the trailer where they’ve been living on their own, whisking them away to his gorgeous home, his understanding new wife, and her less understanding daughter. Murdoch’s debut is poetic and beautifully written, and therein lies part of the problem. Carey’s narration wavers between the gaps caused by her isolated upbringing and moments of beyond-her-years brilliance (“handburgers” and fries are a mystery, yet she tests two grades ahead of her age and often delivers lines like, “I duck my head and smile, unmoored by the flood of unexpected emotion”). Add in Carey’s model-level beauty and virtuosity as a violinist, and the novel’s sense of realism takes a hit. That said, Carey and Nessa’s story is memorable and deeply moving, and readers will find it very easy to fall in love with these girls. Ages 12–up. Agent: Mandy Hubbard, D4EO Literary Agency.

Starred review from February 15, 2013
Ten years after her abduction, 15-year-old Carey is returned to her father and must face harsh realities about her mother, her little sister and their life in the Tennessee woods. Carey and her younger sister live in a camper deep in a forest, away from anyone who might see and report two girls surviving with their drug-abusing, at-times absent mother, Joelle. It's during one of her longer absences that the girls are found by a social worker and Carey's father. Joelle reared Carey on stories of her abusive father, and the teen fears separation from her sister, Jenessa, who rarely speaks and is totally dependent on Carey. Now she finds herself snatched from a life of bare-bones survival to one of physical comfort with her father and his new family. Despite all she has done to raise and educate Jenessa and herself, Carey is hiding things about their life in the woods and the cause of her sister's silence. This deeply affecting story is made all the more so by Carey's haunting first-person narration. The portrait of a teen attempting to navigate a previously unknown world of family and school is well-drawn, especially the tension between Carey and her new stepsister, Delaney, and Carey's budding relationship with a boy she knew before she disappeared. A compelling narrative that is both unflinching about life's pain and hopeful about its possibilities. (Fiction 14 & up)

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Starred review from February 1, 2013

Gr 9 Up-Following a bitter custody battle, Carey's mentally ill, junkie mother kidnapped her and disappeared. Living in a broken-down camper hidden deep in the woods of Tennessee, Carey, now 14, takes care of her younger sister, Janessa, who is selectively mute, while their mother seeks her next fix. When protective services intervene, Carey's father, a man she only knows through her mother's lies, reclaims the girls and takes them to live with him, his new wife, and his stepdaughter. Over the following weeks, the sisters encounter luxuries often taken for granted: square meals, running water, warm beds, and a loving family. Carey even experiences first love with a boy from her past. But she doesn't feel she deserves this happily ever after because of a terrible secret: she did something horrific in order to protect her sister. Would her new family still want her if they knew the truth? Murdoch's debut is beautifully written. The deep bond between the sisters is almost physically palpable, as is their intense longing for love and acceptance; they will quickly endear themselves to readers. This absorbing title will find a captivated audience with fans of Caroline B. Cooney's "The Janie Novels" series (Delacorte) and Sara Zarr's books.-Alissa J. Bach, Oxford Public Library, MI

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Starred review from March 15, 2013
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* Carey's little sister, Jenessa, has not spoken since the white starry night, a night so traumatic that neither acknowledges it happened. But now Carey's father, with the help of Mrs. Haskell, the social worker, has arranged for the girls to live with him and his new family, even though Jenessa is not his biological daughter. He and his wife, Melissa, and stepdaughter Delaney offer the girls a life that is, while not without its challenges, far from their druggie mother who disappears more frequently than she stays, and the hardscrabble existence of canned beans, pee-smelling coats, and cigarette-burned flesh. First-time author Murdoch has written a painful, hopeful, surprisingly quiet book that charts the best and worst of humanity, especially family, with characters who worm their way into your heartor repulse the reader's very nature. Her narrative is full of unique yet breathtaking similes, detailed descriptions, and unflinching dialogue all masquerading as backwoods Tennessee dialect. Exposing child abuse, sexual abuse, and drug abuse for the terrors they are, she validates the courage and ingenuity of young people the world over for whom survival is instinctive, protection of siblings is nonnegotiable, and love is both a right and a gift bestowed upon those fortunate enough to find it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)