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Find Me
After two acclaimed story collections, Laura van den Berg brings us Find Me, her highly anticipated debut novel—a gripping, imaginative, darkly funny tale of a young woman struggling to find her place in the world.
Joy has no one. She spends her days working the graveyard shift at a grocery store outside Boston and nursing an addiction to cough syrup, an attempt to suppress her troubled past. But when a sickness that begins with memory loss and ends with death sweeps the country, Joy, for the first time in her life, seems to have an advantage: she is immune. When Joy’s immunity gains her admittance to a hospital in rural Kansas, she sees a chance to escape her bleak existence. There she submits to peculiar treatments and follows seemingly arbitrary rules, forming cautious bonds with other patients—including her roommate, whom she turns to in the night for comfort, and twin boys who are digging a secret tunnel.
As winter descends, the hospital’s fragile order breaks down and Joy breaks free, embarking on a journey from Kansas to Florida, where she believes she can find her birth mother, the woman who abandoned her as a child. On the road in a devastated America, she encounters mysterious companions, cities turned strange, and one very eerie house. As Joy closes in on Florida, she must confront her own damaged memory and the secrets she has been keeping from herself.
Joy has no one. She spends her days working the graveyard shift at a grocery store outside Boston and nursing an addiction to cough syrup, an attempt to suppress her troubled past. But when a sickness that begins with memory loss and ends with death sweeps the country, Joy, for the first time in her life, seems to have an advantage: she is immune. When Joy’s immunity gains her admittance to a hospital in rural Kansas, she sees a chance to escape her bleak existence. There she submits to peculiar treatments and follows seemingly arbitrary rules, forming cautious bonds with other patients—including her roommate, whom she turns to in the night for comfort, and twin boys who are digging a secret tunnel.
As winter descends, the hospital’s fragile order breaks down and Joy breaks free, embarking on a journey from Kansas to Florida, where she believes she can find her birth mother, the woman who abandoned her as a child. On the road in a devastated America, she encounters mysterious companions, cities turned strange, and one very eerie house. As Joy closes in on Florida, she must confront her own damaged memory and the secrets she has been keeping from herself.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published June 4, 2015
About the author
Laura van den Berg
27 books752 followersLaura van den Berg was born and raised in Florida. She is the author of five works of fiction, including The Third Hotel, a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and I Hold a Wolf by the Ears, one of Time Magazine’s 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bard Fiction Prize, a PEN/O. Henry Award, and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and is a two-time finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Laura is currently a Senior Lecturer on Fiction at Harvard. Her next novel, State of Paradise, is forthcoming from FSG in July 2024. She lives in the Hudson Valley.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 844 reviews
June 10, 2019
Things I will never forget: my name, my made-up birthday... The dark of the Hospital at night. My mother's face, when she was young. ...
This is an weird, absurd and dark book. I'm still thinking about... what to think of it. But it was intriguing for me and well written by a debut author. It runs between 3 and 4 stars for me. Especially the part after the hospital turned less interesting to me, storyline seemed sort of lost. The final part of the book got better again though. But, a special debut and a bleak, intriguing story of a young lonely woman in an apocalyptic world. I may return to write more ... thinking about it. And when I do that, that certainly means a book has made a special impression on me. It kept me reading to the end, although there were some lesser parts. A special debut and a writer with talent, I would say. I would recommend it to people who like to read this genre. I'm intrigued by this author.
Joy spends her days working the graveyard shift at a store outside Boston and nursing an addiction to cough syrup, an attempt to suppress her troubled past. Left by her mother as a one-month old baby, she went through a series of homes and foster families. When a sickness that begins with silver blisters and memory loss and ends with death sweeps the country, Joy is 'recruited' to stay in a hospital for a number of months in quarantine, a supposed 'test group' of immune people. A hauntingly beautiful portrayal of a dystopian future and a powerful exploration of loneliness.
This is an weird, absurd and dark book. I'm still thinking about... what to think of it. But it was intriguing for me and well written by a debut author. It runs between 3 and 4 stars for me. Especially the part after the hospital turned less interesting to me, storyline seemed sort of lost. The final part of the book got better again though. But, a special debut and a bleak, intriguing story of a young lonely woman in an apocalyptic world. I may return to write more ... thinking about it. And when I do that, that certainly means a book has made a special impression on me. It kept me reading to the end, although there were some lesser parts. A special debut and a writer with talent, I would say. I would recommend it to people who like to read this genre. I'm intrigued by this author.
Joy spends her days working the graveyard shift at a store outside Boston and nursing an addiction to cough syrup, an attempt to suppress her troubled past. Left by her mother as a one-month old baby, she went through a series of homes and foster families. When a sickness that begins with silver blisters and memory loss and ends with death sweeps the country, Joy is 'recruited' to stay in a hospital for a number of months in quarantine, a supposed 'test group' of immune people. A hauntingly beautiful portrayal of a dystopian future and a powerful exploration of loneliness.
March 3, 2015
The beginning of the book had me: I'm a sucker for a good, non-zombie pandemic. Add in a potentially-unreliable narrator? Man, I'm sold. But while some aspects of the book really worked early-on, it fell apart at the halfway mark. What it devolved into was a weak road-trip saga, full of imagery and ideas that never really culminated in anything substantive. The last 50 pages felt completely rushed, as if even the author wanted to be rid of the mess. None of the 'plot-twists' were even properly explored - the Hospital's frozen food was given more prose than the very real problem Joy finds herself presented with in the latter half - and the exposition was flat-out boring. Adding to the meh factor, the ending was not really an ending at all. I'm pissed at this book, pissed that it had such potential and it ended up wasting my time.
March 19, 2015
Find Me is the story of and narrated by 19 year old Joy, who lives in a world swept by a mysterious pandemic known only as "the sickness". The sickness begins with memory loss and inevitably ends in death, claiming victims by the hundred thousands. The novel open in a hospital, where Joy is being held along with 74 others - they are all thought to be immune to the plague, and are scrutinized, tested and studies with hope of finding a cure. Joy and others constantly recall various and often obscure facts to reassure that they can still remember; many develop the disease and die, but Joy remains unaffected. As the order at the hospital begins to slowly deteriorate, Joy begins to plan a journey which she hopes would lead to her long lost birth mother, who abandoned her when she was a child.
The biggest problem with Find Me is its aimlessness and ultimate lack of originality.There's not much of a plot to speak of in Find Me; events happen but the structure could have been mumbled and switched, with some thrown out all together, without making much of a difference. Characters are drawn to be interesting, but are not memorable; they go on and off the page without much impact. Novels about virulent disease and apocalypse of all kinds are now more popular than ever for some reason, but the biggest flaw in most of them is that they are not very original - it's also the case with Find Me, where the theme of disease is never explored and is reduced to a background for young protagonist to ponder on her own emotions (If not for its aimless structure, this would probably be marketed as YA). Lastly, the book commits the unforgivable sin of being boring - there is no real story here, and events described ultimately do not end with a sense of closure. Everything is detached, artificial, cold.
I previously read Laura van den Berg's collection of short stories, The Isle of Youth, and had similar complaints about it - I was hoping to enjoy the novel more as I am always drawn to dystopias, but perhaps her work is just not for me.
The biggest problem with Find Me is its aimlessness and ultimate lack of originality.There's not much of a plot to speak of in Find Me; events happen but the structure could have been mumbled and switched, with some thrown out all together, without making much of a difference. Characters are drawn to be interesting, but are not memorable; they go on and off the page without much impact. Novels about virulent disease and apocalypse of all kinds are now more popular than ever for some reason, but the biggest flaw in most of them is that they are not very original - it's also the case with Find Me, where the theme of disease is never explored and is reduced to a background for young protagonist to ponder on her own emotions (If not for its aimless structure, this would probably be marketed as YA). Lastly, the book commits the unforgivable sin of being boring - there is no real story here, and events described ultimately do not end with a sense of closure. Everything is detached, artificial, cold.
I previously read Laura van den Berg's collection of short stories, The Isle of Youth, and had similar complaints about it - I was hoping to enjoy the novel more as I am always drawn to dystopias, but perhaps her work is just not for me.
March 2, 2015
I felt like this book was just a collection of unrelated sentences.
February 24, 2015
Usually, if I deem a book worthy enough to finish, I rate it at least two stars. Not this one. Started out moderately interesting and devolved into a mess that does not resolve itself. Recommended for those who want an acid trip without the acid.
September 29, 2015
A dystopian impressionistic painting - a jumble of questions with no answers; unrelated images and events. Kind of like waking up after a nightmare and only remembering fragments of unsettling and surreal dreams that you can't quite shake and that make absolutely no sense. I felt zero connection to any of the characters but kept reading because I as curious to see where she was going with this story. Apparently nowhere.
I liked the writing but I found the story relentlessly depressing and grim. Not sure I would recommend this to anyone.
I liked the writing but I found the story relentlessly depressing and grim. Not sure I would recommend this to anyone.
August 20, 2016
The story revolves around nineteen-year-old Joy and begins in a hospital where she is being held with seventy-four others. A plague only known as ‘the sickness’ has swept the world and killed hundreds and thousands.
My only problem with this novel is that it feels a bit aimless. There are a lot of questions without any answers or sense of closure. I do enjoy reading about dystopian worlds, as it’s what seems to be popular at the moment, but this, unfortunately, didn’t really cut it for me. I feel like the first half was eerie and exciting, but the second half just dragged out and by the end, it just felt like it was rushed.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
My only problem with this novel is that it feels a bit aimless. There are a lot of questions without any answers or sense of closure. I do enjoy reading about dystopian worlds, as it’s what seems to be popular at the moment, but this, unfortunately, didn’t really cut it for me. I feel like the first half was eerie and exciting, but the second half just dragged out and by the end, it just felt like it was rushed.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 31, 2015
You can't throw a rock in a bookstore these days without hitting a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel or three. There are SO MANY. Surprisingly enough, considering the saturated market, most of the ones I've read are quite good.
The thing is, they're all very different. Some are gory and scary, going into gleeful detail about a global catastrophe. Others are more character-centered, focused on an individual or small group of survivors, exploring what comes after the world-altering event rather than the disaster itself. This variety keeps me coming back to dystopian fiction—I've yet to grow bored with it because each author presents a new and fascinating riff on the theme.
Find Me, Laura van den Berg's debut novel, is another solid contribution to the dystopian bookshelf. The protagonist, Joy, lives in a hospital in rural Kansas. She and the other patients aren't allowed outside the building, and the nursing staff wear full hazmat suits at all times. A sickness has swept the nation, causing sufferers to lose their memories before succumbing to a painful death. Joy and the other patients are quarantined—and being studied—because they appear to be immune.
Prior to Joy's hospitalization, she lived a nomadic, desperate existence, shuffling in and out of foster homes and group homes. She is haunted by the absence of her mother. What kind of woman was she? How could she have abandoned her infant daughter? Joy has a lot of questions she'd like to ask her, despite her simmering rage at being discarded so callously. Her immunity to the disease, a possible genetic gift from her mother, only adds another layer to her complicated feelings.
Find Me is definitely more literary fiction than it is sci-fi. Van den Berg isn't too specific with the details of the plague or the biological reasons why some people would be immune to it, which I know would drive some readers crazy. She also takes the story far afield from the Kansas hospital where Joy's story begins (so don't get too attached to that setting or the other characters populating it). I didn't mind these narrative choices because I found myself more interested in unearthing Joy's childhood memories and plumbing the depths of her feelings towards her mom than analyzing the causes and effects of the sickness.
Ultimately, this is a novel about a girl and the mother who left her. The dystopian elements are just a frame around a personal story of loss.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
The thing is, they're all very different. Some are gory and scary, going into gleeful detail about a global catastrophe. Others are more character-centered, focused on an individual or small group of survivors, exploring what comes after the world-altering event rather than the disaster itself. This variety keeps me coming back to dystopian fiction—I've yet to grow bored with it because each author presents a new and fascinating riff on the theme.
Find Me, Laura van den Berg's debut novel, is another solid contribution to the dystopian bookshelf. The protagonist, Joy, lives in a hospital in rural Kansas. She and the other patients aren't allowed outside the building, and the nursing staff wear full hazmat suits at all times. A sickness has swept the nation, causing sufferers to lose their memories before succumbing to a painful death. Joy and the other patients are quarantined—and being studied—because they appear to be immune.
Prior to Joy's hospitalization, she lived a nomadic, desperate existence, shuffling in and out of foster homes and group homes. She is haunted by the absence of her mother. What kind of woman was she? How could she have abandoned her infant daughter? Joy has a lot of questions she'd like to ask her, despite her simmering rage at being discarded so callously. Her immunity to the disease, a possible genetic gift from her mother, only adds another layer to her complicated feelings.
Find Me is definitely more literary fiction than it is sci-fi. Van den Berg isn't too specific with the details of the plague or the biological reasons why some people would be immune to it, which I know would drive some readers crazy. She also takes the story far afield from the Kansas hospital where Joy's story begins (so don't get too attached to that setting or the other characters populating it). I didn't mind these narrative choices because I found myself more interested in unearthing Joy's childhood memories and plumbing the depths of her feelings towards her mom than analyzing the causes and effects of the sickness.
Ultimately, this is a novel about a girl and the mother who left her. The dystopian elements are just a frame around a personal story of loss.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
November 23, 2014
This is an author I had not heard of until we recorded Episode 014 of the Reading Envy podcast, and Jason (our guest) mentioned her in passing as he discussed a book by her husband. Then I was poking around in Edelweiss looking through review copies of interesting sounding books, and found this, Laura van den Berg's first novel. (Oh yeah so disclaimer, I got this for free, but that does not alter my honest review.)
This is the author's first novel, but I will definitely be finding her short stories to read after this. The story is bleak, about a girl named Joy who is living in quarantine in a hospital. I would not read the novel description because I think it gives too much of the story away. We do know that many of the people have died from a disease that turns your skin silver and causes you to lose your memory, before you eventually die of it.
Part 1 centers around the hospital with some back story, while Part 2 moves on from there. It was there that I encountered some explanations of things that sent me back to Part 1 to try to make sense of it all. In a good way, I think.
I liked the unique details like the pilgrims and the mother.
This is the author's first novel, but I will definitely be finding her short stories to read after this. The story is bleak, about a girl named Joy who is living in quarantine in a hospital. I would not read the novel description because I think it gives too much of the story away. We do know that many of the people have died from a disease that turns your skin silver and causes you to lose your memory, before you eventually die of it.
Part 1 centers around the hospital with some back story, while Part 2 moves on from there. It was there that I encountered some explanations of things that sent me back to Part 1 to try to make sense of it all. In a good way, I think.
I liked the unique details like the pilgrims and the mother.
February 13, 2015
5+.
For the smart, nuanced consideration of memory alone, the book would get 5 stars. I dog-eared probably 15 pages with quotes to copy out later - they're all over the book, whether turns of phrase or deep thoughts or (sometimes) both. Ms. van den Berg has taken the same tools with which she crafts her short stories and simply written a longer one, fleshing it out in all the right ways. It's a brilliant, funny, sad, smart, and impactful novel - one that, while you read it, takes you by the throat and doesn't want to let you go once you've put it down.
More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2015/02...
For the smart, nuanced consideration of memory alone, the book would get 5 stars. I dog-eared probably 15 pages with quotes to copy out later - they're all over the book, whether turns of phrase or deep thoughts or (sometimes) both. Ms. van den Berg has taken the same tools with which she crafts her short stories and simply written a longer one, fleshing it out in all the right ways. It's a brilliant, funny, sad, smart, and impactful novel - one that, while you read it, takes you by the throat and doesn't want to let you go once you've put it down.
More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2015/02...
Read
May 7, 2015This is such an interesting and surreal dystopian novel. Essentially, the reader meets a super unique protagonist, Joy, who has her own complications even as the human race is struggling with its own. After an outbreak of a disease that causes people to forget those around them, Joy enrolls in a hospital program that separates her from the rest of the world and the book kicks off from there. I really enjoyed this one even more than I expected because the caricatures of people that populate this novel feel so strange but so completely necessary in this kind of traumatic, dark story. — Jessi Lewis
from The Best Books We Read In April: http://bookriot.com/2015/05/01/riot-r...
from The Best Books We Read In April: http://bookriot.com/2015/05/01/riot-r...
April 15, 2015
I am torn between wanting to give this novel a 5 and a 1. :) This book is by far the most maddening book I've read recently, and while parts of it were absolutely brilliant, other parts made me want to bash my head in.
Short synapsis: The world in a not so distant future has suffered from a devastating pandemic in which people turn silver, lose their memories, and then die. Joy, our protagonist, is strangely immune and recruited for a "hospital" where she can be studied in hopes of finding a cure. Joy was abandoned as a child, and has had a rough childhood. She copes by indulging in a cough syrup addiction that she supports by stealing from her workplace. Her best year(s) was when she was in a foster family with Marcus, another "rough childhood" child, whom she loves as a brother but is the boy she "loved but never saw again". With another foster family, Joy loses a year of memory. Obviously, something traumatic happened that she has suppressed. Memories are vital in this novel. One of the ways the patients at the hospital prove that they are not sick is by telling memories or reciting facts about themselves or things they know. The first half of the novel is dedicated to Joy's stay at the hospital, and the latter half is a road trip to Florida after Joy leaves the hospital in hopes of finding her mother, and ultimately herself.
My thoughts: I am a sucker for a good apocalyptic/ post-apocalyptic story. And the premise of this novel is brilliant. Memory stealing disease, sketchy "hospital", abandoned orphan girl with traumatic memories? Yeah, I'm intrigued by the premise. And the narrator is totally unreliable, which I tend to adore because it definitely is more realistic (who is 100% honest? no one) and it keeps me on my toes while reading. And the first half of the novel absolutely delivers. But the second half definitely left me unsettled (not necessarily a bad thing) and with tons of questions (hence the 3 stars).
Short synapsis: The world in a not so distant future has suffered from a devastating pandemic in which people turn silver, lose their memories, and then die. Joy, our protagonist, is strangely immune and recruited for a "hospital" where she can be studied in hopes of finding a cure. Joy was abandoned as a child, and has had a rough childhood. She copes by indulging in a cough syrup addiction that she supports by stealing from her workplace. Her best year(s) was when she was in a foster family with Marcus, another "rough childhood" child, whom she loves as a brother but is the boy she "loved but never saw again". With another foster family, Joy loses a year of memory. Obviously, something traumatic happened that she has suppressed. Memories are vital in this novel. One of the ways the patients at the hospital prove that they are not sick is by telling memories or reciting facts about themselves or things they know. The first half of the novel is dedicated to Joy's stay at the hospital, and the latter half is a road trip to Florida after Joy leaves the hospital in hopes of finding her mother, and ultimately herself.
My thoughts: I am a sucker for a good apocalyptic/ post-apocalyptic story. And the premise of this novel is brilliant. Memory stealing disease, sketchy "hospital", abandoned orphan girl with traumatic memories? Yeah, I'm intrigued by the premise. And the narrator is totally unreliable, which I tend to adore because it definitely is more realistic (who is 100% honest? no one) and it keeps me on my toes while reading. And the first half of the novel absolutely delivers. But the second half definitely left me unsettled (not necessarily a bad thing) and with tons of questions (hence the 3 stars).
February 24, 2015
I liked the first half much better than the second, the descriptions of the Hospital and being quarantined were just so much more interesting than the cross-country bus wanderings. Also, after reading Station Eleven I don't think any other book about sickness and a decimated society will compare.
January 2, 2016
Probably more a 2.5...it starts off great--very interesting and eerie but then shifts into just plain weird in the second half. It was a fast read so I kept plowing along, waiting for the great revelation, which didn't happen for me.
March 2, 2015
Okay, so:
Part 1: 5 x ∞ stars
Part 2: 4 stars...or maybe 2 stars...wait, what? WHAT is happening? NEGATIVE STARS.........well, maybe back to three.....and now five again. We ended on five.
Which I think averages out to four stars.
Now that we have that out of the way, a slightly more serious review:
Laura van den Berg is an excellent writer. Her sentence structure is meticulous and surprising. The pacing for part 1 is superb, even though it's essentially about one person confined to a single building. The characters are endearing, delicate, and fully fleshed.
The structure of part 2 breaks from its careful nature, and not in an entirely positive way. Metaphors go awry. There's a lot of happenstance. Darkness creeps in at the edges, then eats you alive.
But the last few chapters let a little light in, and the book is good again. More than good. Pretty damn good.
Part 1: 5 x ∞ stars
Part 2: 4 stars...or maybe 2 stars...wait, what? WHAT is happening? NEGATIVE STARS.........well, maybe back to three.....and now five again. We ended on five.
Which I think averages out to four stars.
Now that we have that out of the way, a slightly more serious review:
Laura van den Berg is an excellent writer. Her sentence structure is meticulous and surprising. The pacing for part 1 is superb, even though it's essentially about one person confined to a single building. The characters are endearing, delicate, and fully fleshed.
The structure of part 2 breaks from its careful nature, and not in an entirely positive way. Metaphors go awry. There's a lot of happenstance. Darkness creeps in at the edges, then eats you alive.
But the last few chapters let a little light in, and the book is good again. More than good. Pretty damn good.
March 4, 2015
Near the conclusion of Laura van den Berg's superb debut novel, Joy, the protagonist, theorizes that we go through such tremendous effort to avoid processing trauma that eventually our brains allow to forget, but on the condition that we will never feel whole.
Recruited into an experimental hospital because of her immunity to an epidemic that is erasing the minds of all it infects, Joy quickly establishes herself as one of the most unique narrators in recent memory: snarky, thoughtful, and tragic. We later find that though Joy has retained her memory, it is restricted to the present and it's this suppression of memory that might be keeping her alive. Her past is fragmented and grim, consisting of jumping from foster to group homes with large gaps in between. Find Me is separated into two parts. Part one is Joy's attempt to distance herself from her traumatic past; part two is her journey to bring it back. Part two is getting some criticism from my fellow Goodreaders. However, I loved it.
Find Me continues in the postmodern tradition of asking more questions than it does provides answers, but van den Berg's prose and vision separates the novel from it's peers. It's the beginning of March and I can't imagine reading a more beautiful and profound book this year.
Recruited into an experimental hospital because of her immunity to an epidemic that is erasing the minds of all it infects, Joy quickly establishes herself as one of the most unique narrators in recent memory: snarky, thoughtful, and tragic. We later find that though Joy has retained her memory, it is restricted to the present and it's this suppression of memory that might be keeping her alive. Her past is fragmented and grim, consisting of jumping from foster to group homes with large gaps in between. Find Me is separated into two parts. Part one is Joy's attempt to distance herself from her traumatic past; part two is her journey to bring it back. Part two is getting some criticism from my fellow Goodreaders. However, I loved it.
Find Me continues in the postmodern tradition of asking more questions than it does provides answers, but van den Berg's prose and vision separates the novel from it's peers. It's the beginning of March and I can't imagine reading a more beautiful and profound book this year.
March 3, 2015
Review forthcoming, O the Oprah magazine.
Edited: read the review online here! Hint: it's so good.
http://www.oprah.com/book/Best-New-Bo...
Edited: read the review online here! Hint: it's so good.
http://www.oprah.com/book/Best-New-Bo...
July 13, 2015
Parts of this book were lovely, but so much of it just didn't make sense. The mysterious disease to which the protagonist, Joy, is apparently immune kills fewer people than the flu pandemic of 1918, but throws the country into complete chaos? This is "sci-fi lite" -- same genre as The Age of Miracles -- more literary than sci-fi, but it doesn't really come together.
During the first half of the book, Joy is stuck inside a hospital, where she and other apparently immune people have been brought to be studied. They're poked and prodded daily. There's a mysterious "pathologist" who broadcasts positive thinking messages over the loudspeaker. This was the most convincing -- a study of what happens to people who are contained, the dynamics between patient and doctor/keeper.
The second half, after Joy leaves the hospital and embarks on a road trip, feels more like an acid trip. It's weird and disjointed, and just didn't work for me.
During the first half of the book, Joy is stuck inside a hospital, where she and other apparently immune people have been brought to be studied. They're poked and prodded daily. There's a mysterious "pathologist" who broadcasts positive thinking messages over the loudspeaker. This was the most convincing -- a study of what happens to people who are contained, the dynamics between patient and doctor/keeper.
The second half, after Joy leaves the hospital and embarks on a road trip, feels more like an acid trip. It's weird and disjointed, and just didn't work for me.
April 9, 2015
I have enjoyed Laura van den Berg's short fiction, but when I saw her read from this book the selection she chose was terrible. I ignored this initial impression and wrote it off as the difficulty in choosing a few paragraphs from a novel to stand alone. Unfortunately though my initial impression was correct. This book is amateurish and haphazardly thrown together. It's just scene after unrelated scene. Nothing builds on anything else or carries any meaning. It's just random scenes that are supposed to look weird or cute piled one after the other. Even referencing Twin Donuts in Allston can't get me to give her more than 1 star for this book.
July 31, 2023
So, an interesting story...
Goodreads tells me I added this book to my shelves back in 2014. At some point after that, I purchased a copy and here it sat, all this time, waiting to be picked up and read. And why did I finally pick it up now, you ask? Well, because this weekend, as I was reading Hye-Young Pyun's The Hole, I decided I would do a little reading experiment. I would choose my next read based off of the authors who blurbed Pyun's book, and I would continue to choose my next read in this fashion until I get to a book that I don't like. Laura van den Berg happened to be one of the authors who blurbed Pyun's book. Since I already owned Find Me, I figured this was the best place to start. And what a place to start it was!
I really enjoyed this book and wish I had it read it much sooner. I love that it's set in the middle of a pandemic and that it was written before any knowledge of Covid and the impact it would have on our country.
The novel is broken out into two parts - Book One follows our protagonist as she spends her days killing time in the hospital during the height of the pandemic. People who are infected develop silver scale-like blisters on their bodies and slowly begin to lose their memories, who they are, where they are from, what food is, what breathing is. The death rate is through the roof. But Joy appears to be immune and she may be part of the cure. So she's brought to a special hospital in Kansas where they are studying and testing those who have not shown signs of the virus in the hopes of helping others survive as well.
Joy continues to retain her memories as some of the patients around her fall ill and die, and as a result begins to dive deeper into herself and her pre-pandemic traumas. Then, on the heels of a news annoucement that the death toll appears to be slowing down, Joy convinces one of the hospital staff to give her the code to the outer door and she devises a plan to head to Florida to locate her estranged mother. Book Two leaves the hospital in its rearview as Joy begins the road trip of a lifetime across a country that has been ravaged by the pandemic.
The book is unbound by time, in that weird spongy way that isolation and boredom can have on you, and the prose is incredibly lovely in a gut-punchy, ridiculously quote-worthy way. If I was a fan of book darts or marginalia, I would have marked up soooo many pages!
So where do I go from here? On to the back cover of of Find Me course! Edan Lepuki blurbed this book, but I just read her forthcoming novel Time's Mouth last week, so I decided I'd go with Dan Chaon instead. Strangely enough, I've never read him before, but I have a copy of Await Your Reply that's also been sitting here for years... so onward we go in the #bookblurbreadingexperiment...
Goodreads tells me I added this book to my shelves back in 2014. At some point after that, I purchased a copy and here it sat, all this time, waiting to be picked up and read. And why did I finally pick it up now, you ask? Well, because this weekend, as I was reading Hye-Young Pyun's The Hole, I decided I would do a little reading experiment. I would choose my next read based off of the authors who blurbed Pyun's book, and I would continue to choose my next read in this fashion until I get to a book that I don't like. Laura van den Berg happened to be one of the authors who blurbed Pyun's book. Since I already owned Find Me, I figured this was the best place to start. And what a place to start it was!
I really enjoyed this book and wish I had it read it much sooner. I love that it's set in the middle of a pandemic and that it was written before any knowledge of Covid and the impact it would have on our country.
The novel is broken out into two parts - Book One follows our protagonist as she spends her days killing time in the hospital during the height of the pandemic. People who are infected develop silver scale-like blisters on their bodies and slowly begin to lose their memories, who they are, where they are from, what food is, what breathing is. The death rate is through the roof. But Joy appears to be immune and she may be part of the cure. So she's brought to a special hospital in Kansas where they are studying and testing those who have not shown signs of the virus in the hopes of helping others survive as well.
Joy continues to retain her memories as some of the patients around her fall ill and die, and as a result begins to dive deeper into herself and her pre-pandemic traumas. Then, on the heels of a news annoucement that the death toll appears to be slowing down, Joy convinces one of the hospital staff to give her the code to the outer door and she devises a plan to head to Florida to locate her estranged mother. Book Two leaves the hospital in its rearview as Joy begins the road trip of a lifetime across a country that has been ravaged by the pandemic.
The book is unbound by time, in that weird spongy way that isolation and boredom can have on you, and the prose is incredibly lovely in a gut-punchy, ridiculously quote-worthy way. If I was a fan of book darts or marginalia, I would have marked up soooo many pages!
So where do I go from here? On to the back cover of of Find Me course! Edan Lepuki blurbed this book, but I just read her forthcoming novel Time's Mouth last week, so I decided I'd go with Dan Chaon instead. Strangely enough, I've never read him before, but I have a copy of Await Your Reply that's also been sitting here for years... so onward we go in the #bookblurbreadingexperiment...
May 16, 2015
Maybe you like some beautiful sentences, some interesting thoughts about memory, and what makes up a life, anyway? But by the time I finished this book, I was angry I had wasted my time reading it: the plot meanders, takes up threads, and then leaves them unresolved; the characters are hard to get a handle on, which makes them particularly unsympathetic; and the quest of Joy, the main character, in the second half of the book, feels unending...and doesn't actually end, come to think of it...
I kept reading, hoping there would be some kind of resolution: of Joy's quest, of the reason for all the weirdness, of the strange reasons Joy and her fellow patients had been detained in their hospital, and just why Marcus comes back into her life...but, nope. None. Not even a bone to throw at those of us who made it through. This is not only a completely joyless (get it?) read, but the ending gives no satisfaction whatsoever. Not recommended for anyone.
I kept reading, hoping there would be some kind of resolution: of Joy's quest, of the reason for all the weirdness, of the strange reasons Joy and her fellow patients had been detained in their hospital, and just why Marcus comes back into her life...but, nope. None. Not even a bone to throw at those of us who made it through. This is not only a completely joyless (get it?) read, but the ending gives no satisfaction whatsoever. Not recommended for anyone.
March 2, 2015
DAMMIT. This book was a four or five star read, gripping as hell, beautifully written... until the second half. It's like I just read two separate books. I was so invested in Joy's life, so enthralled by what was going on at the Hospital and her relationship with Louis. I shed tears! I didn't want to put it down!
And then it just fell apart.
I know van den Berg has written short stories before this, so I'll definitely check them out, as she's a beautiful writer. Rounding up to three stars because I loved the first section so much.
And then it just fell apart.
I know van den Berg has written short stories before this, so I'll definitely check them out, as she's a beautiful writer. Rounding up to three stars because I loved the first section so much.
March 6, 2015
First half of the book was okay. The second half was just weird. I don't mind books that don't wrap things up nice and neat, but after I finished this one I just felt I wasted my time.
If you want to read a good book about the end of society as we know it, I recommend Station Eleven. This book didn't even compare.
If you want to read a good book about the end of society as we know it, I recommend Station Eleven. This book didn't even compare.
November 16, 2017
A rather strange, unusual book, but I enjoyed it. The story is about memory and the past and how memories can be false or true, but that is true for reality also. I was fascinated by the way the book jumps from here to there and the way things were put together like when you make a puzzle. Even then, did I put the puzzle together the right way? This is not a book for you if you like the straight forward stories, but is you like to be surprised or a book that makes you think, I recommend reading it.
July 12, 2016
It starts as a post-apocalyptic novel and carries on as the story of a young woman who looks for her mother. More slow-paced than I expected. While characters just come and go through the pages, the writer does not give us how the virus comes out and its consequences that we can read on any other post-apocalyptic book.
March 10, 2015
More than fifty pages in I didn't feel at all compelled to read this. To be fair, these dystopia, disease-related stories aren't really my thing. I wanted to get to the beautiful writing described by others but this book is not for me.
June 5, 2015
Honestly, I'm just glad it's over.
August 18, 2017
This book has two halves, and unfortunately they end up with different ratings. The first half works okay, introducing the situation and the characters and the overall breakdown. The second half is a weak road trip that finally leaves the reader hanging.
Both halves use flashbacks to tell the story, and both have interesting characters. Like the main character, few of these reach resolution. Reading the first half, I was reminded of The Girl with All the Gifts. Late in the second half, the groundwork is laid for a "where are they now" moment - the main character sees a TV news report - but even that is abandoned without resolution.
In summary, too many mysteries are introduced and far two few are concluded. The first half is in the 2-3 star range, but the second half falls way short of even that. I read nearly all of this on a four hour plane flight, which perhaps saved me throwing it across the room on completion.
Both halves use flashbacks to tell the story, and both have interesting characters. Like the main character, few of these reach resolution. Reading the first half, I was reminded of The Girl with All the Gifts. Late in the second half, the groundwork is laid for a "where are they now" moment - the main character sees a TV news report - but even that is abandoned without resolution.
In summary, too many mysteries are introduced and far two few are concluded. The first half is in the 2-3 star range, but the second half falls way short of even that. I read nearly all of this on a four hour plane flight, which perhaps saved me throwing it across the room on completion.
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July 2, 2022i loooove a book w a less than 3 star avg rating
March 9, 2015
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Over half of the story is spent in the Hospital. Just as creepy as it sounds. Patients who are considered immune from the plague that has swept across America (and the world? It's unclear whether it's worldwide or not), are kept captive in this abandoned Hospital. They share a TV. They are tested weekly, their blood is taken to be studied every couple of days, and they basically walk around like zombies, looking to fill their time with something.
Which is kind of how that huge chunk of the book feels. A little aimless. It's eerie, sure, and of course the authorities in charge at the Hospital are hiding something. Or a couple somethings. But for the most part, the patients wander. They recall life before the plague (Joy's was a life shuffled between foster homes and getting high on cough syrup). But it's pretty much...boring for that majority of the story.
The next section of the book goes wayyyy past nothing happening into too many way-past-weird things happening. Joy and her childhood friend (who you never learn much of anything about. He has a scarred face and wears plastic masks much of the time) find this house. In this house is a lady who wears angel wings and takes an unknown drug to hear voices in the basement. The man she lives with is abusive and makes them play games in the woods.
It is exactly as weird as it sounds. It feels like you're on a kind of drug trip the whole time you're reading it. I'm not sure if I was supposed to get anything from it, but at this point in the book, I just wanted it to say something meaningful, say something that made sense!!
It doesn't. And Joy's quest to find her mother? Never comes to fruition. Frustrating, at so many points in the story.
It is, at some points, beautifully written. I pinpointed some quotes and imagery that I thought were particularly poignant. But the plot was too patchy, the characters too flimsy to really stick with me.
Over half of the story is spent in the Hospital. Just as creepy as it sounds. Patients who are considered immune from the plague that has swept across America (and the world? It's unclear whether it's worldwide or not), are kept captive in this abandoned Hospital. They share a TV. They are tested weekly, their blood is taken to be studied every couple of days, and they basically walk around like zombies, looking to fill their time with something.
Which is kind of how that huge chunk of the book feels. A little aimless. It's eerie, sure, and of course the authorities in charge at the Hospital are hiding something. Or a couple somethings. But for the most part, the patients wander. They recall life before the plague (Joy's was a life shuffled between foster homes and getting high on cough syrup). But it's pretty much...boring for that majority of the story.
The next section of the book goes wayyyy past nothing happening into too many way-past-weird things happening. Joy and her childhood friend (who you never learn much of anything about. He has a scarred face and wears plastic masks much of the time) find this house. In this house is a lady who wears angel wings and takes an unknown drug to hear voices in the basement. The man she lives with is abusive and makes them play games in the woods.
It is exactly as weird as it sounds. It feels like you're on a kind of drug trip the whole time you're reading it. I'm not sure if I was supposed to get anything from it, but at this point in the book, I just wanted it to say something meaningful, say something that made sense!!
It doesn't. And Joy's quest to find her mother? Never comes to fruition. Frustrating, at so many points in the story.
It is, at some points, beautifully written. I pinpointed some quotes and imagery that I thought were particularly poignant. But the plot was too patchy, the characters too flimsy to really stick with me.
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