Find Me

I flew through the first part of this book! The memories of the beginning, The Hospital, Louis, the twins.....but then the entire book falls apart and there is no point to anything anymore!

Every character seems to be mentally challenged - and many of them have drug addictions that make the reader distrust the story line. The story wanders, pointlessly, and never achieves any resolution.

You know how sometimes the end can completely ruin the rest of a book? It's like that, only in this case, it's really the entire second half slowly prepares you for the way the ending is a fizzle.

I started Find Me knowing that it's ranking on goodreads was awful. But it sounded so freaking cool, that I had to do it anyway. In fact my to-read notes were: “A woman immune to the impending amnesia-plague uses it as a chance to rewrite her life, but supposedly it's terrible?” As billed.
OK, that's not fair: the first half was far from terrible. In fact, while I don't think even the first half would have wide-based appeal, I thought it was fantastic: just a touch of surrealism, beautiful language, The central discourse –the interconnection of current self and the people we've been in our lives; how memory matters (or doesn't) and whether we choose to be who we are or are shaped – was interesting and I felt van den Berg really had a lot of new ideas on this well-worn topic and certainly a new way of showcasing. A side note on “beautiful language:” I think there's a fine line between “lyrical” and “purple prose” and often the more beautiful the language is purported to be, the less I like this book; van den Berg steers well-clear of this problem. She is a master of English. Her sentences are gorgeous, thought-provoking and clear. They build her story, rather than detract from them. It's honestly the only reason I finished part two – she's truly superlative.

The second half, though, is rough. It's basically a travelogue through the post-apocalypse, although just how apocalyptic is kind of unclear. The problem is that without a solid plot to support everything else, the surrealism and existentialism become overwhelming and repetitive. This part both drags and is actively painful to read. I kept hoping it would get better, but it doesn't: it just ends, all of a sudden, after completely abandoning narrative and leaving a very surreal passage. I'm not even totally sure what happened in the end.