Laura van den Berg

One of the most freakishly talented young writers at work today

pleasingly strange ... impressively original

Original piece of dystopian fiction...disturbing and thought provoking...

a distinctive new voice…original…intoxicating

Spellbinding. . . Find Me is crafted to be consumed in small sips, though with a novel so full of mystery and surprise, the temptation is to gulp…

A fresh spin on apocalyptic stories, Find Me beautifully evaluates memory loss and the stories we tell ourselves

A timeless chronicle of self-discovery…unforgettable…

Laura van den Berg is the best young writer in America

[Laura’s stories are ]… uniformly excellent - emotionally complex, very raw - but always with a mixture of pathos and humour that made me think of Lorrie Moore

Sad, eerie, smart, cynical and heartbreaking

This elegiac debut novel … lingers and aches in the memory

This is a thoughtful, touching story about survival—about finding ways to heal and reasons to live.

In understated prose, Laura creates Joy’s distorted and strange world. As we enter into that fictional world, we see that it reflects, in many ways, the real world where we find ourselves today. And in Joy’s loneliness and desire to connect, we recognize ourselves.

hauntingly beautiful . . . Don’t miss this remarkable book

A very impressive, must read for fans of STATION ELEVEN, so unsettling but subtle too. I loved FIND ME…

a moving, and frequently funny, exploration of character and of trauma

Like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, van den Berg’s debut novel presents a frighteningly plausible near-future dystopia grounded in human elements… heartbreakingly real and compellingly wrought

Find Me, her transfixing first novel, is in keeping with her short stories thematically, and yet, in its deep soundings, it’s a commanding departure. . . Van den Berg’s enveloping novel of a plague and a seeker in an endangered world reveals what it feels like to grow up unwanted and unknown in a civilization hell-bent on self-destruction. It is also a beautifully strange, sad, and provocative inquiry into our failure to love, cherish, and protect. But ultimately, Find Me is a delving story of courage, persistence, and hope

In Find Me, van den Berg depicts a life slowly coming into focus—it’s blurry and impressionistic at times, sometimes deliriously scattered. But out of the fog of memory and the haze of drugs emerges a sense of clarity that’s deep and moving and real

From this memorable novel's eerie first paragraph to its enigmatic ending, Laura van den Berg has invented something beautiful indeed

This is one of my favorite novels of 2015, and we’re not even IN 2015 yet . . .The language is beautiful, spare, and carefully crafted, and the characters are fully realized and unforgettable. There is tension and redemption and insight and even humor in these pages, and they make for a really incredible read

Surreal adventures blend with a reflective and sad sensibility in van den Berg’s lyrical debut novel

Both novels offer precision of language and metaphor and scene even as what is being constructed feels messy, chaotic, sad, hopeless... Both orphaned and alone in the world, both so completely real, both telling a story that feels important and exciting to read. I feel lucky to have stumbled upon these books this year, and challenged by them to be better

This debut novel by acclaimed short story writer van den Berg tends to lean much closer to the realms of literary fiction with its complex psychology. . . Van den Berg's writing is curiously beautiful

a strange beauty in this apocalyptic tale

Things I will never forget: my name, my made-up birthday…The dark of the Hospital at night. My mother’s face, when she was young. 
 
Things other people will forget: where they come from, how old they are, the faces of the people they love. The right words for bowl and sunshine…What is a beginning and what is an end. 
 
Joy spends her days working the graveyard shift at a store outside Boston and nursing an addiction to cough syrup, an attempt to suppress her troubled past. But when a sickness that begins with silver blisters and memory loss and ends with death sweeps the country, Joy, for the first time in her life, seems to have an advantage: she is immune. 
 
Laura van den Berg's critically acclaimed debut novel is at once a hauntingly beautiful portrayal of a dystopian future and a powerful exploration of loneliness.

Laura van den Berg

Praise for Find Me

A beautiful and compelling read

One of the most freakishly talented young writers at work today

pleasingly strange ... impressively original

A beautiful and compelling read

One of the most freakishly talented young writers at work today

pleasingly strange ... impressively original

A beautiful and compelling read

One of the most freakishly talented young writers at work today

pleasingly strange ... impressively original

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