You Know Where to Find Me | 
 enlarge | Author: Rachel Cohn
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $15.99
Buy New: $7.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 239177
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0689878591
EAN: 9780689878596
ASIN: 0689878591
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: First edition, first printing hardback. Book and dj like new. Flyleaf has slight wrinkle.
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Product Description
Jamal said only, "Laura..." And I knew, just knew by the rip through my gut and the instant convulsion in my heart, knew by Jamal's uncharacteristically unsmiling face. I knew because Laura always did what I wished I could do.First cousins Laura and Miles grew up like sisters. Miles thought of Laura as the golden one -- smart, beautiful, rich, and popular -- while Miles considered herself the unwanted one -- an unattractive, underachieving outcast. Laura's suicide shatters Miles and leaves her feeling completely alone, and sets Miles on a dangerous downward spiral. But in the strength Miles finds in herself and in those she didn't believe cared about her, she is able to rebuild her life in unexpected ways. Rachel Cohn's emotionally powerful new novel views serious issues such as depression, suicide, prescription-drug abuse, and alternative family configurations through the lens of family love and survival.
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 The book is cluttered with too much going on, the promising concept never has a chance to shine. Not recommended July 17, 2008
Cousins Laura and Miles grew up like sisters, but high school has separated them--attending different schools, Laura has become attractive and successful, Miles overweight and underachieving. When Laura's sudden suicide separates them for good, Miles begins a downward spiral of overeating, drug use, and depression. You Know Where To Find Me is based on the absence of Laura, but it heart lies with Miles, her downfall, and her journey back to life. This should be enough content to make up a novel--but, unfortunately, it's not. Miles is a believable narrator, but there are so many issues cluttering the short book, from politics to drug use and of course Laura's suicide, that no one element has the chance to stand out. The subject matter may interest younger readers, and there's nothing outright bad or overly objectionable, but on the whole this book is lackluster and I don't recommend it.
You Know Where To Find Me has many promising aspects but no major strength. The initial concept--Laura's suicide--makes for an intriguing opening and an unusual book, where the primary driving force is not a character but instead her absence. Unfortunately, Laura's backstory is revealed so early and so easily that it is stripped of longterm interest. The book's of the other promising aspects have similarly anticlimactic developments. Cohn approaches these many aspects in good faith, creating both hopeful potential and premature world-weariness in Miles, and exploring things like the D.C. setting and Miles's drug use in realistically gritty and still approachable detail. However, there are so many factors--such as those I've mentioned, and young love, local politics, and issues with sexual activity, race, diet, and parental relationships, as well as suicide, loss, and grief--that no one aspect has the chance to rise above the others and shine.
As a result, this book is cluttered and brief, too short a text with too much going on. No one aspect is explored in enough interest or depth, and even worse the ending is too swift and too easy. Wrapped up in a simplified conclusion, Miles is stripped of her otherwise realistic character growth and the long, painful journey through her grief and personal problems. Despite the premise and promise, You Know Where To Find Me doesn't deliver much. Cohn has an adequate, unexceptional writing style, and there's enough taboo subject matter (mostly drug use and suicide) to hold the reader's interest, particularly in a young adult. It's not a bad book, and the content (especially the accepting messages about race and body type) is largely non-objectionable--I wouldn't warn away the interested reader. But there isn't enough to make this book worth reading, and so I don't recommend it.
 a story of loss and the grieving process July 8, 2008
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
You Know Where to Find Me March 31, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
Courtesy of Teens Read Too March 10, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
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
Lost after Loss February 29, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
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