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The premise of DON'T TRY TO FIND ME is unique. Unfortunately, the forward momentum of the book relies heavily on characterization, and creating convincing characters is not Holly Brown's strength. Ms. Brown can be forgiven for not giving us a nuanced portrayal of Marley, the early adolescent who disappears at the start of the book. Marley is thirteen, has lived a fairly sheltered life, and seems more connected with her online friends than reality. So the fact that she doesn't have much depth could be seen as a function of her age. However, the book would have been far more gripping if Brown had brought Marley to life. Marley has seen a psychologist because of anxiety attacks, a fact that becomes crucial to the plot, but the reader isn't provided with any insight into where Marley's panic attack came from. The lack of depth of characterization of Marley's mother, Rachel, and her father, Paul, results in caricatures more than characters.
Rachel, Paul, and Marley have moved from San Francisco to a suburban farm. Rachel has manipulated her family into this move to get away from a secret relationship that threatens her family. Marley hasn't made any real friends in town, and one day she simply disappears, leaving behind a handwritten note saying, "Don't try to find me." The parents can do no such thing, and Paul begins an online campaign to find his daughter. He warns Rachel that any secrets will likely come out, but she allows the campaign to take place and continue even as it begins to point to her involvement in her daughter's disappearance. Alternating chapters fill the reader in on what is happening with Marley, who can't seem to stomach going home even after her teenage fantasies don't pan out as planned.
There is little tension in this thriller, since the reader knows all along where Marley is and what is happening to her. Her circumstances after leaving home are not unexpected, since we quickly find out that she left to be with a man she met on Facebook. How she deals with the disappointment and then danger of that situation indicates that she has done a modicum of growing up during the experience.
As Marley figures out how to cope with her situation, Rachel continues to make poor choices back at home, and each of those choices becomes fodder for the media. Paul throws himself wholly into public relations efforts designed to bring Marley back, distancing himself ever further from his wife. When it appears their relationship can get no worse, they suddenly find a way to work together and this leads to the resolution of the plot.
The book is written in fairly short chapters, and some of those chapters are short Facebook "conversations." It shouldn't have taken as long as it did to read it, but there was no real suspense to bring me back to the book when I set it down. Although some of the material is a bit too adult, I ended up feeling as though I was reading a YA book. There was, simply put, very little depth to this book.
§ Sharon Mensing is the Head of School of Emerald Mountain School, an independent school in the mountains of Colorado, where she lives, reads, and enjoys the outdoors.
Reviewed by Sharon Mensing, August 2014
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