The New York Times Book Review - Carmela Ciuraru
…[a] pleasingly strange first novel…Anyone who has read van den Berg's distinctive story collections…knows that she favors eccentric characters and surreal gestures…Her dark sensibility calls to mind the great Joy Williams, a master at portraying life on the margins. Both seem contemptuous of sentimentality and easy redemption…Find Me is impressively original and tricky to categorize.
Publishers Weekly - Audio
04/27/2015
Reader Zeller provides a heartfelt reading of Van den Berg’s dark yet inspiring apocalyptic novel. As a mysterious illness spreads across the world, 19-year-old protagonist Joy Jones is living as ward of the sinister Hospital, along with other immune children, subject to the strange experiments of Dr. Bek, whose interest in Joy extends beyond medical inquiry. Zeller’s modulations in tone and pace conjure up the emotional starkness of Joy’s world and her roller coaster of emotions. The lightness in Zeller’s voice conveys Joy’s youthful optimism when she’s thinking of her mother and her happiness when she is with her beau, Louis. But when Joy is sad, lost, and heavy with her reality, Zeller’s tone drops and her pace becomes slow and thick like the cough syrup that Joy drinks to numb herself to her world. Zeller is careful not to overwork her narration and at times adopts an evenness in her voice that highlights Joy’s desperation and the ambiguity of what is and is not true in her sterile world. A Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
"The book's ambiguous conclusion may lead to rereading as the possibility of multiple interpretations is opened." ---Library Journal Starred Review
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
"The book's ambiguous conclusion may lead to rereading as the possibility of multiple interpretations is opened." —Library Journal Starred Review
School Library Journal
10/01/2015
The world is starting to fall apart just as Joy begins putting herself back together. Abandoned by her mother at birth and raised in several foster care and group home situations, Joy has struggled to find direction. When a deadly sickness spreads across the country, first stripping people of their memories and then propelling them from dementia to death, Joy finds out she is immune to this disease and is admitted to a hospital that is looking for a cure. She uses this time to reflect on her life thus far and make a plan to track down her birth mother. The first-person narration allows readers to follow the story through Joy's changing perspective, which creates a mood that subtly moves from ambivalence to determination. Teens will be compelled to discover more about the mystery of the illness, and themes of survival and self-discovery will resonate with them. This debut novel's interesting exploration of how people behave during times of crisis mixed with the dynamics of hospital living is a combination of Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted (Turtle Bay Bks., 1993) and Josh Malerman's Bird Box (Ecco, 2014). VERDICT Give this to introspective teens who enjoy postapocalyptic stories and lyrical language.—Carrie Shaurette, Dwight-Englewood School, Englewood, NJ
