Riley’s journey continues in the third installment of the Find Me series. With the promise of a better life on the horizon, she reluctantly leaves the Laguna Mountains of Southern California behind for the good of her group. But not everyone makes the trip. During her struggle to come to terms with the choices she’s made in the past, Riley turns to her inner circle for hope. But finding it will … will be more difficult than she ever imagined when her choices come back to haunt her. She’s lost her family. She’s lost friends. She’s lost love. And now in Finding Hope, Riley just might lose herself. As some questions are answered, others are created. Who will survive? And will hope be found?
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I’m not likely to remember ALL of the things I experienced while reading this / wanted to mention but I’ll give it a go …
First of all … from the very first couple paragraphs I felt like , “whoa, her writing’s really improved.” As a big fan of her writing from the beginning I’m not saying it needed improvement or that I’d found anything wrong with it – I just felt like there was a noticeable difference in this book. She’s clearly spent a lot of time and worked really hard on this one. Her descriptions are stellar: they give a clear picture without being super wordy and adding length to the book or losing my spastic attention. At the same time they are different than most – they alone serve to give this book a much darker feel. After everything our regular characters went through in the first two installments, a darker tone was certainly implied – as well as some of the events themselves. But even when awful things aren’t happening, the mood is set – and it is on a dark setting and it is glorious.
I love how Dawson did so well at making the whole mood/feel of the book just adapt to the times we’ve found everyone in. Finding Hope does pick up pretty much right where Lost & Found left off – just as Lost & Found did with I Hope You Find Me – yet has a very different feel to it at the same time.
When characters say and think things like, “I’ll rip out the man’s spine and wear it as a scarf.” I’m hooked. I love the originality and violence in such a simple statement. Many times she made me smile despite the morbid happenings.
I feel like some of the questions that popped up in Book 1 have been answered but certainly others spring up in this action and drama-packed installment. I’ll also issue a fair warning – this book ends on a cliff hanger of sorts. With this ending, I am going kind of nuts – definitely leaves me wanting more but also leaves me frustrated because I wanted so long for this installment and now I must wait longer to figure out what the heck happens…
Cover: Gorgeous and professionally done – and fits with the story brilliantly.
Continuity: no beefs here – well done.
Editing/Proofing: Very well done – only caught a few typos.
Formatting: book has a professional appearance.
Character development: Utterly brilliant. All of them stay true to character throughout their time in the series. With some of them you can even see the exact moment they lose their minds – the how/why/when/where of it happening and almost hear the snap their brain must be making. When things happen that do prompt them to change in this way – the characters are not lost. Even when out of their minds you can still sense them in there somewhere – this was done magically – and with more than one of the beloved regulars of this series.
I highly recommend this series to readers of all genres as there’s mystery, no shortage of action and loads of drama. I’ll be re-reading this whole series for sure – cannot wait to dive in again.