Green Books Campaign Review: The Find by Kathy Page

This review is part of the Green Books Campaign. Today 200 bloggers take a stand to support books printed in an eco-friendly manner by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 books printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. By turning a spotlight on books printed using eco- friendly paper, we hope to raise the awareness of book buyers and encourage everyone to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books.

The campaign is organized for the second time by Eco-Libris, a green company working to make reading more sustainable. We invite you to join the discussion on “green” books and support books printed in an eco-friendly manner! A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on the Eco-Libris website.

The Find was printed on FSC-certified paper from mixed sources that’s 99% recycled (including the cover) and Ancient Forest Friendly. For more information about the environmental characteristics of the paper used to print The Find and to take the green book quiz, visit Webcom, the print provider for McArthur & Company Publishing.
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The Find by Kathy Page is the story of Anna, a palaeontologist with a secret who makes an amazing discovery, and Scott, a high-school dropout who is caring for his alcoholic father. A chance meeting between the two leads Anna to confide in Scott and later ask him to join her on her dig. As both internal and external conflicts plague the project, Anna becomes increasingly dependent on Scott.

I haven’t been reading much fiction lately, so I approached this novel with some trepidation, almost convincing myself in advance that I wouldn’t like it. However, from the first chapter, Page’s vivid descriptions pulled me right into Anna and Scott’s world. Here, for example, is an excerpt from the opening scene: “Outside: a wall of water, the deafening roar of a million tiny parts. The rain sang and drummed, raced downwards, pooled, spurted from guttering, burst in gurgling torrents from downspouts, bubbled from blocked drains” (p. 9). (Can’t you hear that rain?) As mentioned in the blurb on the back of the book, The Find is a complex story about “discovery, inheritance and fate”—it’s a multifaceted novel that almost reads like a literary thriller. (I stayed up late at night to finish it!)

There are a multitude of characters in this book—much more so than in many novels (where main characters often seem to know such a limited number of people). Anna especially is surrounded by friends, family and colleagues, which I occasionally found confusing, as I had trouble keeping some of the more minor characters straight. By the same token, their inclusion in the story helps to ground it in reality and makes the ending of the book all the more poignant.

My favourite quote:

“It seemed to her that life was sometimes terrifying, at other times shot through with bliss. So much in it, all at once: the creep of continental plates, the code in your genes, the smell of cooking, the memory of your mother’s voice calling you out of your dream. Extinctions and creations. The rush of birdsong at dawn. A woman’s belly, tight with the life inside. There were so many discoveries: those you went looking for, yearned for so much that it hurt, and others which lay waiting and which, if you knew of them, you’d do anything to escape, and behind each of them, another. A switchback ride, a dream of flight.” (p. 157)

The Find offers the best of all worlds: descriptions that draw you in without distracting from the story, realistic characters who face difficult choices, and a complex plot that keeps you turning the pages until the very end—with the added bonus that it’s published on one of the greenest types of text paper available. I highly recommend this book, especially if you are a fan of Michelle Richmond or Janette Turner Hospital.

Thank you to Eco-Libris for organizing the Green Book Campaign and to McArthur & Company for sending me this book to review.
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Other review: Geranium Cat’s Bookshelf (which gives away a lot more of the plot than I did!)

Interview with the author: BookClubBuddy
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