Book Review

I Found You by Lisa Jewell 

Atria Books, 2016

352 pages

I Found You is a mystery, suspense novel with different characters, each with their own story to tell. Alice finds a lost man on the beach when she’s leaving her home and hands him a jacket for the cold. By the time she gets back, he’s still there. He tells her he can’t remember anything so she invites him to stay in her place till he gets his memory back. Her children name him Frank for the time being.  Meanwhile, Lily has been married for weeks, so when her husband doesn’t come home one night, she panics and seeks help from the police. That’s when she finds out the man she thought she married is not who he says he is.

The book is divided into four parts- each more intense than the last. At first, the book is written in two perspectives which are Alice and Lily’s since Alice seems to have what Lily wants. In the third part, the author introduces a third story involving the events leading up to the present situation. It gets to the root of the 20-year-old mystery that has Frank confused and Lily spouseless.

The main characters: Alice, Lily and Frank have their own vulnerabilities. Alice who is a mother of three had to struggle to provide for them by herself. Her main weakness (to me) is men. She falls in love fast and always ends up alone. Lily, on the other hand, is very insecure about what people think about her. She knows nothing about London and she’s only been married for three weeks when her husband disappears. The fear that everyone is judging her for marrying a man she’s only known for days troubles her. Deep down, she knows that she had this coming on the long run and doesn’t want others to sense that.

 Frank was obviously the most intriguing part of the book. Not because he forgot every piece of his life but because he was worried that he was a criminal haunted by the police day and night. It made me wonder whether he’d turn into this terrible serial killer (if he was) when he got his memory back. This is a man who doesn’t know if he’s a good person or not and dreads finding out. He’s constantly bothered by the idea of being a burden to Alice and her kids while Alice spends her time hoping that Frank‘s the man she has always wanted.  Frank is a simple considerate man, but maybe that is because everybody is a good person by default. Who knows?

In the chapters that slowly unravel the mystery at hand, a different story is played out. Gray and his family are on a vacation- then Mark, a random stranger, shows up. He has this suspicious air about him that only Gray notices. When Mark and his sister, Kirsty, start dating, Gray is clear about his disapproval but no one thinks anything of it.

Jewell wrapped up the novel nicely. She made it seem easy to piece the story together but as it progresses, nothing is like what you expected. It has many dark elements lightened up by the spontaneity of the characters. This is a great book from beginning to end with a steady, solid pace. Everything falls into place with a satisfying end.