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The Child Finder
by Rene Denfeld
My rating: *****/5 stars
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Warning: This book deals with child abduction and abuse and so may not be for everyone. Also, this review does contain some spoilers.
Naomi Cottle is an investigator of the saddest kind – she finds children who are lost – or at least she tries to. She is led to this work because she, too, was once a lost child and is haunted by the same demons as the children she finds.
The story starts when the parents of Madison Culver, who has been missing for 3 years, hear about Naomi and reach out to her, hoping beyond hope that she can help them find their little girl. Her mother, still reeling from guilt and suffering from the loss, is positive that Madison is still alive. The father is not so positive and is living with a different kind of grief. They describe to Naomi the fateful day of Madison’s disappearance – how they stopped off in the Skookum National Forest to cut down a Christmas tree; how they turned around and found she had completely vanished. Police searched the forest for her but to no avail. She was gone. And a little girl, alone in the snowy forest didn’t stand much of a chance.
Naomi decides to take the case and begins her investigation. As she begins her research talking to the natives of the isolated forest, she begins to have flashbacks. These flashbacks show herself, a little girl, running through a field; running away from what she could only remember as monsters. We begin to see how deeply disturbed Naomi really is, how she is still haunted by her tragic past. So haunted, in fact, that she can not remember any of it – just the fragments that come back to her in her dreams.
This book is so interesting because I wanted to know what happened to Naomi- why she was so haunted, afraid to settle down in one place, afraid to love or connect with other people. Slowly, the author reveals Naomi’s tale through her dreams. And although we never get the whole story, we get enough to get a good idea of the tragedy of Naomi’s young life. We also get a glimpse into the tremendous weight that she bears – a guilt that never went away and never let her have a moment’s peace.
Running parallel to Naomi’s search, we hear Madison’s side of the story; how she was found in the forest by Mr. B; how he took her into a bunker underneath his cabin and kept her there in complete darkness, only occasionally letting her upstairs. This, of course, is such a disturbing subject, but what really struck me was Madison’s resilience. In order to deal with her horrific situation, she separated from herself mentally, calling herself the Snow Girl. She was a Snow Girl, learning the ins and outs of her new life – how not to make Mr. B mad; how to get through the long days in the bunker; how to get through the scary nights. The mind is a miraculous thing. It helped Madison survive three years of captivity, three years of terror, three years of loneliness.
Ultimately, Naomi finds Madison, and this has a healing effect on her. Madison reminds Naomi of herself, as she became a fictional character to make it through her ordeal, and Naomi simply blocked it out of her mind. Both were strong and both did what they needed to survive.
Usually, I don’t like books like this. I have trouble thinking that such terrible things can happen to children. This book was different. It didn’t go into explicit detail of the abuse, which I think helped me get through it. Rather, it explored the emotional side of the victims, which I found fascinating. This book is well done and truly deserves 5 stars.
Oh man. This one sounds HEAVY but good. Kind of sounds like a cross between ROOM by Emma Donoghue and INK AND BONE by Lisa Unger. Both of those are really good, by the way. You’ve prob seen/read ROOM already, but Lisa Unger may be less familiar. Great writer, though!
Thanks for the warning about the book. I have friends who are anxious mothers who always ask, “will I be able to handle this book?” and it’s good when they can be warned about content that might upset them!
It was heavy – not really a Christmas read. But it was so good. I did read ROOM – this was similar, yet I think I liked this book better. It really explored the emotional coping mechanisms of abuse victims, which I thought was so interesting. I never read Ink and Bone, I will have to try that one!
I know that I have trouble sometimes reading these kinds of books, so I always like to be mindful of that when recommending books to others. Thanks for the kind words!