You Know Where to Find Me

Rachel Cohn has been lauded by young readers and critics alike for her popular books like GINGERBREAD and (with David Levithan) NICK & NORA'S INFINITE PLAYLIST. In titles like these, she gains teens' respect by writing honestly and openly about difficult subjects, even within the context of "traditional" romance fare. With her latest novel, YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ME, Cohn takes this honesty a step further in her darkest and most intense fiction to date. "To us, 'cousin' meant almost the same thing as 'sister,'" writes 17-year-old Miles about the relationship between herself and her cousin Laura. The two girls, raised almost as close as sisters, shared nearly everything, from the ominously imaginative games they played as children to the horde of prescription drugs they abused as teenagers. In many ways, Laura and Miles could not have been less similar, especially as they entered adolescence. Laura was the fairy tale princess, strikingly beautiful, immensely popular at her exclusive private school. Miles, with her pudgy body and lack of self-esteem (Laura's "wider, duller half"), never quite fit in to her mostly black Washington, DC charter school, where she was nicknamed "8 Mile." But when Laura, following in the footsteps of her favorite fairy tale princess, Sleeping Beauty, decides never to wake up --- killing herself with an overdose of the prescription medications she and Miles have used recreationally --- Miles realizes that perhaps she and Laura shared the same outlook on life's hopelessness after all. Plunged into grief and helplessness by the loss of her cousin/sister and best friend, Miles embarks on an odyssey of self-destructive behavior in the months following Laura's death. Along the way, she discovers painful realizations about her complicated family life, about her feelings toward her best friend Jamal, and even about her loyalty to Laura. Rachel Cohn pulls no punches in her depiction of Laura's death and Miles's response to it, offering frank descriptions of the effects of certain drugs, the ugly aftermath of suicide and the devastating effects of grief. Some may find Miles's painful soul-searching too agonizing to read. Others will recognize it for what it is: one of the few painfully true accounts of what it means to grieve the loss of one's closest, most promising friend and ally. "I dread waking up to that light. Each day it reminds me that Laura is gone, and the world I know is immediately plunged into darkness. It's like the day didn't even have a chance. The sun got to me first." At turns fanciful and grittily real, Cohn's language effectively illustrates both Miles's inner world and her mundane reality. Narrated in Miles's world-weary voice, the brutally honest story is a testament to the writing talents Miles herself disputes that she possesses. Readers will certainly empathize with this prickly but vulnerable protagonist as she struggles to write for herself the happy --- or at least hopeful --- ending she and Laur

As someone who lost her father to suicide, I was deeply moved by Rachel Cohn's story about a girl who took her own life, and the painful toll it took on those she left behind. The writing in this book is simple, yet powerful, heart-wrenching, yet funny at times, and the book is short, yet meaningful from beginning to end, pinpointing the powerful effect that suicide has on the people left to deal with the aftermath. Miles and Laura are cousins who grew up as best friends, until they entered high school and became distant. Miles is the overweight, unpopular one who loves reading and chainsmoking, and Laura was the pretty, popular one, who had a future planned, until she took her own life not too long after her high school graduation. She seemed like the type of girl who had everything to live for, going through life with a smile on her face, putting up a fake front to those she loved in order to hide the deep pain hidden inside herself. Following Lauras suicide, Miles feels completely alone. Laura is gone, her mom took off to London to be with her boyfriend, and her best friend Jamal (who she's in love with) has started dating Bex, Laura's high school best friend. In order to comfort herself throughout the grieving process, Miles hides behind food and books, chainsmokes, and relieves her pain with prescriptions drugs. And in the midst of all this, she becomes somewhat closer to Laura's dad, Jim, as they chainsmoke together in Jims garden, and after her own father, Buddy returns, she resents his presence at first, but later on in the book realizes that even though he wasn't always there for her, he showed up and was at her side when she really needed him, unlike her mother who decides to stay in London with her boyfriend. "I am trying not to think of the colors Laura saw at the end, but I can't help it. I am dying to know. I guess I can't use that expression anymore. Can I? When Laura passed from darkness into light-or was it the other way around?-i want to know what she saw. Were there people waiting for her, or welcome signs, hopefully in blues and yellows? Or was there nothingness? No color, not even gray? I know there was no God waiting for her, because no God could have let her find Him this soon."-You Know Where to Find Me

This book starts out with the suicide of Miles's cousin, Laura, and steadily progresses into something deeper and more complex. Laura and Miles grew up best friends, but their tight-knit relationship couldn't withstand high school, where Laura was the perfect popular one, and Miles was an overweight reject. But Laura was the one who wanted to die. After the suicide, Miles's mom goes to London to be with her long-distance boyfriend, her best friend develops an unexpected relationship with Laura's best friend, so Miles is left alone and missing Laura. She turns to drugs to try to get away from her problems, and tries to fill the void that Laura left behind. This was a very short but powerful book about love, loss, and family. But while that sentence sounds so typical of an average teen novel, You Know Where to Find Me is anything but typical or average. Miles is a strong but misguided main character, and she's so used to being around Laura that it takes her awhile to adapt to being alone. I love this book simply because it gave me insight to a world that I've never been part of, and it showed a very realistic struggle from a very realistic girl's point of view. Rachel Cohn definitely did not disappoint in her latest novel, and I look forward to reading more by her.

Laura and Miles grew up together. They were cousins who lived so close that Miles could sneak out of her room on scary, stormy nights and escape to the safety of Laura's bed. They spent hours in their tree house and hiding out in their favorite bookstore. As little girls became adolescents, though, being related and living near each other didn't guarantee closeness. Miles liked to eat and drink. And smoke. Her body put on weight, her poorly-dyed hair never behaved, and she escaped the world by reading. Her grades sucked. She didn't care. Laura was a beautiful, social butterfly. She was pleasant. Got good grades. Had the perfect boyfriend. The adoring father. So why is she the one who killed herself? And Miles wonders why Laura got everything. Everything. She even got to escape the world. She got what Miles wanted. Miles planned on joining her. Who would even care if Miles died, anyway? With that frame of mind, Miles takes several downward turns which continue to lead her in the direction her life had been heading for a long time. Laura even left Miles a secret stash of drugs to help her cope. For a while, Miles chooses to live life in a state of numbness. The worst thing to her was when the fog faded and she had to face life without her cousin. As you read YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ME, you find touching characters. You care for them--not just Miles--but her father, Laura's father, even Laura herself. Miles falls to such a low that everyone worries about her chances of survival. But somehow in this cocoon of a druggy fog, there's a spirit of a person. A person who is stronger than many people realized. People are not always what they seem. Sometimes they are stronger. Sometimes weaker. Rachel Cohn has written a touching novel that covers so many issues. And it leaves you thinking. Wondering. Hoping. Reviewed by: Dianna Geers

Two cousins grew up like sisters, and though their life wasn't ideal, it was bearable because they were together. Then Laura commits suicide, and Miles, the girl left behind, falters. You Know Where to Find Me by Rachel Cohn is intense, to say the least. While detailing Laura's death and Miles' downward spiral, Cohn doesn't soft-pedal anything. The fallout is intense without being overwhelming. One of the many things I enjoyed about Find Me was the search. I didn't know exactly what Miles would do next or where she would end up. I didn't predict the ending. I didn't need to. And with this, with her, I wished for peace and hope. Also, for something she could call her own. With this novel, Cohn definitely challenges readers. If she gets just one person to reevaluate what could be the ultimate decision . . . wow.