You Know Where To Find Me

Cohn, Rachel. 2008. You Know Where To Find Me.

You can almost always find our heroine, Miles, popping pills, getting high, or smoking. She's a drug addict who is content--or content enough at least--living a very wasted life. She plans on dropping out of high school once she turns eighteen. Even the suicide of her cousin, Laura, (drug overdose) fails to get through to her. Life is meaningless, right? It doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. Miles is overweight, unhappy, and seeking release through drugs. She doesn't necessarily want to die. But she doesn't want to live either.

Miles has a few friends--including Jamal and Bex--but most of the time the drugs are more important than they are. And her cousin's father--her 'uncle'--is one of the few people in life that she can just be with...without any strings attached. Let me clarify, I mean be herself with. No show. No hypocrisy. They are two of the people feeling this loss the heaviest. Her father is also in the picture...a little bit. She mainly keeps him in the fringes of her life. Not letting him in. And certainly not letting him see her as she really is. Her mom? Out of the picture escaping conveniently across the ocean.

Miles is about as lost as a girl can get...well, as lost as she can be while still having a heart beat.

I think that You Know Where To Find Me will either appeal to you...or not. It wasn't quite my thing. I know it sounds awful to not like Miles. After all, she doesn't love herself or respect herself...and someone needs to love her. But other than the fact that at one point Miles loved to read, really loved to read, we have very little in common. I guess I've just never felt so deeply-troubled and angry and despondent.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews