Wednesday, 30 July 2025

Book ~ "Don't Try to Find Me" (2014) Holly Brown

From Goodreads ~ Don't try to find me. Though the message on the kitchen white board is written in Marley's hand, her mother Rachel knows there has to be some other explanation. Marley would never run away.

As the days pass and it sinks in that the impossible has occurred, Rachel and her husband, Paul, are informed that the police have "limited resources." If they want their 14-year-old daughter back, they will have to find her themselves. Desperation becomes determination when Paul turns to Facebook and Twitter and launches FindMarley.com.

But Marley isn't the only one with secrets.

With public exposure comes scrutiny and when Rachel blows a television interview, the dirty speculation begins. Now the blogosphere is convinced Rachel is hiding something. It's not what they think; Rachel would never hurt Marley. Not intentionally anyway. But when it's discovered that she's lied, even to the police, the devoted mother becomes a suspect in Marley's disappearance.

Is Marley out there somewhere, watching it all happen, or is the truth something far worse?

Fourteen-year-old Marley disappears one day, leaving her iPhone behind and a note on a whiteboard saying, “Don’t try to find me.” Her parents are shocked, especially Rachel, her mom, and Paul, her father, starts a huge online campaign to bring Marley back. But as her parents goes public, cracks start to show in their seemingly perfect life and and it becomes obvious Rachel has been hiding things.

This is the first book I've read by this author and I thought it was okay, not great. It is written in first personal perspective jumping back and forth in Rachel’s and Marley’s voices and different timelines (the chapters are labeled). As the story progresses, we eventually discover why Marley ran away and the ramifications of her decision. The police don't seem overly effective or interested in finding Marley and I found it unbelievable that Paul's online campaign was more instrumental than them. Why wasn't there an amber alert issued right away? I didn't find any of the characters overly likeable. As a head's up, there is swearing and teenage "adult" activity.

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