If You Find Me Review

Spoiler free

This review is on Emily Murdoch's debut novel "If you find me". This novel was a little different from what I usually pick and I hadn't heard a lot about it either. The book dare I say was a bit of "lets buy this for the sake of it" and I tend to do this a lot just because I like t0 buy books. I haven't seen many people posting on instagram about it and so I'm sure many people won't have heard about this book before. 

"A beautiful book about survival, identity, family, love and so much more."
JENNY DOWNHAM, author of Before I Die.

The books itself was quite a quick read for me but I think that's because I so engrossed in it. The main character Carey lives in the woods in a broken-down camper hidden deep in the forest with her six year old sister, Jenessa and her drug-addicted mother. Her mum tends to disappear for months on end leaving Carey and Jenessa to look after themselves, what comes with this is the close relationship between the sisters. Carey becomes very much like a mother figure to Jenessa - who unfortunately doesn't actually talk. Two strangers turn up at the camper and one turns out to be her father. Carey has to now learn how to adapt to a very different world, one she spent so long away from. 

The other characters are Mrs Haskell (I would say she was a social worker).  Melissa, her dad's wife. Delaney, Melissa's daughter. Pixie and Ryan, Carey's friends at school. Melissa was a very likable character and she soon bonded with the girls and tried to make them feel at home as much as possible. Jenessa tended to "blend in" with the family a lot more but I think that was because she was younger and young children can adapt to new situations more easily, in my opinion. Carey for me, as strong of a character she is, didn't really find it easy to cope with her new lifestyle, she had a few panic attacks here and there because of the busy life she was presented with, rather than the quiet of the forest. She often referred to Melissa and her Dad as Ma'am and Sir which made it hard to see them as Mother and Father figures, it was more like she was on an interview. I hated the character Delaney with a passion, she was everything I dislike, rude and malicious. It wasn't till the end that I started to develop an attachment to the background characters. If I talk to0 much about each one it may spoil it so I will leave the rest to your imagination. 

Overall my feelings on this books are just pure amazement, I loved it. As soon as I finished it, I wanted more I wanted these characters to carry on, which is one thing I really don't like about stand alone novels. I believe this book would be good for teenagers of any gender and I feel like it's something I would go back to if I ever needed a quick read. I give this book 9.5/10. 

Charlotte 

♥

All the Bright Places Review

Spoiler Free

All the Bright Places is a romantic novel by Jennifer Niven. I discovered this book while perusing through amazon and decided to buy it along with a few others. To start with I had no idea who the author was so I have done some background information. Overall she has written 8 books ranging from nonfiction and fiction, both historical and contemporary, adult and YA. All of her books are very different and as I was looking her up she had said "all my books are all over the map, but if you look closely they share a common theme: they are stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things." At this moment in time I am trying to multitask but its definitely not working, listening to music and trying to type is not the best idea and I have had to go back twice now because I typed out the lyrics... Anyway back to the review, I knew straight away I was going to like the story to this book, give me a romance over action any day.  I had heard a lot of good things about this and it just appealed to me, I like books that make me think over everything when I'm finished or leave me feeling completely lost.

Violet Markey (the protagonist) is devastated by the death of her sister and Theodore Finch well he’s basically obsessed with death. They meet on the bell tower at their school both wanting to jump but in fact end up saving each other. How far will Violet go to save the one she loves?

When I first started reading this I felt as though it was just another Fault in Our Stars hype but for me it definitely wasn't. I felt as though I could connect with the characters a lot more and because of this I got attached to them and actually cried more than I did with John Green's overly hyped book, but that's another matter. I have read some comments on goodreads and some said that this book is glamorizing suicide which kind of upset me a little because if you read the authors notes at the end it actually tells you what inspired to write these characters and it does involve personal experiences.  

The book is set in the state of Indiana, America and the characters both attend High School. Before they meet on the bell tower they had never really spoken to each other before and actually belong to different groups inside the school. "Theodore Freak" is what Finch (he tends to be called "Finch" throughout the book) is nicknamed by the group that Violet belongs to although she hasn't really been herself since the accident and therefore doesn't quite fit in anymore. Their relationship is quite rocky at the start and it can sometimes feel like Finch is stalking her but Violet ends up falling for the mysterious boy and they have to be one of my favourite book couples. I was "awwing" the whole way through and the chemistry between the two characters was undeniable. 

The disappointments in this book for me were the other characters. They lacked the likability and didn't leave much of an impression on me. However saying that I think it was necessary as otherwise there would have been too much to focus on. 

Overall this book left me feeling like I had been stranded on a desert island for days, it really messed with my emotions and made me think about how lucky my life truly is. I think this book is good for anyone who likes quite an intense read because it’s definitely not a quick read. As much as I loved this book, for me I'm very fed up with the same format in the romance genre. They always seem to try and make characters so different and intelligent when to be quite honest I would like to read a book about average people, at least then I can sort of hope it would happen to me. I have decided to give this book a 9/10, because I loved the characters and the start of the book but the ending was a little disappointing.  

Charlotte 

♥