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Summary and Reviews of Find Me by Rosie O'Donnell

Find Me by Rosie O'Donnell

Find Me

by Rosie O'Donnell
  • Critics' Consensus (2):
  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • First Published:
  • Apr 1, 2002, 224 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2003, 224 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Part memoir, part mystery, Find Me is a compelling and utterly original tale that will break your heart as it heals it.

In Rosie's words, "The whole world changed with just one phone call...."

"I met Stacie for the first time in May. Her voice was meek and flat on the phone. She wasn't crying, but I heard it, the unmistakable sound of desperation. That was the first call, the single call that would change my life, and hers too, probably forever.

"I work with a nonprofit adoption agency in New Jersey. I fund their operation, provide outreach services, and they do the work. Finding families for kids who need them is beyond fulfilling, it is addictive. I like to help. I need to help. I help a lot, sometimes too much. "This is a true story about a girl named Stacie who called the adoption agency with a terrible problem. A lot of it won't make sense, at least logically. But sometimes sense runs deeper than logic. Nothing happens by chance. The events that follow, some dark and painful, changed me absolutely."-Rosie O'Donnell


FIND ME


Part memoir, part mystery, Find Me is a compelling and utterly original tale that will break your heart as it heals it. Told in Rosie's candid, moving voice, it is the story of a friendship between a troubled young woman and a celebrity obsessed with helping her. As this bizarre relationship unfolds—and unravels—so, too, does Rosie's history, forcing powerful acts of remembering and reckoning. This is a topsy-turvy tale of unforgettable characters, mistaken identities, and strange psychological illnesses that may or may not exist. Through it all, we come to know the author at levels that grow ever more surprising—and sometimes shocking—as Rosie reveals to us not only the way the past transforms the present, but how a single stranger thousands of miles away can spark irrational longings, profound obsession and, finally, the opportunity to put these forces to work in a healing way.

CHAPTER 1

"Come on, Bessie!" she'd say while tenderly tapping the dashboard of her rusty blue station wagon. "Come on, Bessie!" every time, without fail, urging the old car up a steep hill. I would lie in the way, way back, all alone, listening over the ever-present din of sibling arguments and wait for it. "Come on, Bessie," I'd mouth along with her. A secret ritual, a way to connect.

My dad sold Bessie sometime in the winter of 1973. I came home from school and the battered blue wagon was gone. I didn't expect an explanation, I didn't ask for one. I missed that car, full of memories, full of her. After she died, I would curl up in the way, way back, close my eyes, and search for the Mommy smell that still lingered inside. A scent that would carry me off to dreamland.

CHAPTER 2

I met Stacie for the first time in May. Her voice was meek and flat on the phone. She wasn't crying, but I heard it, the unmistakable sound of desperation. That was ...

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Reviews

Media Reviews

BookPage
In telling this fascinating tale, she deftly weaves in accounts of her own heart-breaking trials as a young girl struggling to deal with the death of her mother. Rosie's endearingly self-effacing style and frank portrayal of events will keep readers hooked. And as the story comes to its surprising end, they are likely to find themselves either appalled at her gullibility or struck by her boundless compassion—possibly both.

Publishers Weekly
Rosie imparts some unexpected truths. Readers will come away persuaded that the road of obsessiveness can sometimes lead to the palace of wisdom, that faith and grace are real.... Rosie offers us an unsentimental and utterly real tale about the power of love.

Author Blurb Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City and The Night Listener
Find Me is a spellbinding read, as warmly intimate and confessional as an all-nighter with an old friend. O'Donnell leads us places you'd never expect, like that shadowy corner of the human heart where generosity and need are all but indistinguishable from each other.

Reader Reviews

shae.d.b

find me
"find me" was nothing short than curious, colorful, & heavy thought out as it pertained to Rosie's life. Fleeting with real associations to anyones life that has been maginified by pain & cover up. Truth be known that this tale allows one to ...   Read More
Mary

This is an excellent book, and not what you might think it's about. It's not so much a biography or memoir -- more a story about one event in the author's life, and how it affected and changed her. Very interesting read -- hard to put down.

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