Review: Find Me

Find Me by Romily Bernard
Published by Simon and Schuster UK
Format Reviewed: Paperback
Publication Date: January 16th 2014
Genre: YA Thriller
Pages: 320
Reviewed by: Eugenia
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
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A girl is dead… A killer's closing in… And two little words are the only clue… "Find Me".   These are the words that Wick Tate finds in Tessa Wayne's diary. And now Tessa has been found … dead. Does someone out there really expect Wick to uncover the truth about her death? 
An expert computer hacker, Wick has the skills for the job, but with the threat of her ex-con dad returning, the detective hunting him sniffing around and new foster parents to keep happy, getting involved with a murder case is the last thing she wants to do. Until her little sister, Lily, is the next target. Foster child. Daughter of a felon. Loner hacker-girl. Wick has a bad attitude and sarcasm to spare. And now she's going to find this killer, no matter what it takes. 

Because it just got personal. 

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Australia for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

There's some evil you just can't catch, because no one recognises it. I know all about that. 

Even though I wouldn't say that Find Me is the best YA thriller that I've read, it still had a pretty solid mystery and addictive plot. If some aspects of the novel were gone about in a different way, such as the romance or predictability of the plot it would have received a higher rating. That being said, I would recommend it to newcomers who may not have read many particularly chilling books in the YA thriller genre and are looking for a quick, easy read.

Starting off with the positives, I did find Wick to be a strong character. With her sarcastic attitude and obvious intellectual ability (I'm guessing that learning computer code it pretty difficult) she is a force to be reckoned with. Considering her circumstances, she deals with the situation of living with her foster parents and keeping her younger sister out of harms way quite well. You don't hear of many female hackers as such in YA fiction, and this book did break that sort of stereotype in a subtle way.

I also found some of the techy-language to be quite an interesting add-in and I could relate to some of it (the only thing I really understood was the 'blue screen of death' - which I have come across on my old computer a few times). Apart from this though, there were some great suspenseful moments in there as well. The inclusion of snippets of Tessa's diary at the beginning of each chapter helped to set the mood and tone, although it would have been nice to see a whole chunk in there somewhere just to add to the chill factor a little more.

One thing that did catch me off-guard was the fact that the romance basically came out of nowhere. We may have had a slight hint at what was to come, but things still did escalate really quickly. I didn't see any real genuine affection come out between the characters on a deeper level. It might be hard to do this in a thriller novel where romance isn't the main focus, but if it isn't done well and believably then there isn't much point in adding it to the story in the first place.

*CONCLUSION*

In conclusion, even though I may have liked Find Me for the majority, it didn't hit the full mark for me. As a quick, mysterious read it was quite good if somewhat predictable. However, if you are looking for a start into this genre then it may be a good place to work from.