Book Review: Don't Try to Find Me by Holly Brown

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this book, free of charge, from Harper Collins Publishing, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it

Synopsis:

Don't try to find me.Though the message on the kitchen whiteboard is in fourteen-year-old Marley's handwriting, her mother, Rachel, knows there has to be some other explanation. Marley would never run away. Rachel might not know her daughter at all. But she does know that she needs to find Marley before someone else does. The police have limited resources devoted to runaways. If Rachel and her husband, Paul, want their daughter back, they'll have to find her themselves. Paul turns to Facebook and Twitter and launches FindMarley.com. But Marley isn't the only one with something to hide. Paul's social media campaign generates national attention, and the public scrutiny could expose Rachel's darkest secrets. When she blows a television interview, the dirty speculation begins.

When it's discovered that Rachel lied to the police, the devoted mother becomes the prime suspect in Marley's disappearance. Is Marley out there, somewhere, watching it all happen . . . or is the truth something far worse?

Review:

This is the first book I've read that REALLY pulled the modern social media and all it's good and bad into a story, making it almost a character to itself. It gives the story a very realistic edge, and one that will instantly grab parents of young girls and teens. We've all seen parents of missing children, and how their lives are torn open by the media and exploited, and nothing can remain a secret for long. But what if those secrets are at the kernel of what went wrong in the first place- will baring them wide open help resolve issues, or tear a family totally apart? This book tries to answer that question and more. You may not really like the characters (I didn't much), but by presenting both mother and daughters points of view, you can understand them and their actions. This is a page turner, and no I'm not telling you how it ends! 

About the Author:

Holly Brown is a practicing marriage and family therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives with her husband and toddler daughter. Her blog, Bonding Time, covers a wide range of mental health, parenting, and relationship issues, and is featured at PsychCentral.com. She'd love to be part of your book club in person or online. Drop a line through her Facebook author page:
https://www.facebook.com/hollybrownauthor