Customer Reviews

Have You Found Her: A Memoir

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Erlbaum's book strikes a chord for anyone who has dealt with a loved one with Borderline Personality Disorder. And for anyone co-dependent with a BPD sufferer. I have could have been Janice in this story, believing everything my BPD loved one told me about her unfortunate life, "protecting" (enabling) her, letting her manipulate me with her neediness and my desire to "save" her from the ugliness of her life. I know Erlbaum's book rings true because I lived it for 40 years before I finally figured out I was being played by a skillful liar and manipulater. Even though I knew where the story was going, I still hoped it would end differently, with a positive resolution in which everyone lives happily ever after. Guess I'm still pretty suseptible to the BPD way of life, huh?

If you have a loved one with BPD or you find yourself being someone's savior, read this book and know you are not alone. There are lots of us out there. We should start a club or something.

This is Janice Erlbaum's second memoir. Her first book told the story of her own teen years - years in which she was a runaway and a shelter resident who successfully transitioned out of that life. In Have You Found Her, Erlbaum writes about her experiences twenty years later as a volunteer at that same shelter. Because she was a writer at the time, she carefully documented in a journal what she did, what people said, and her feelings as she kept a weekly commitment as the "Bead Lady" who helped the girls make jewelry on Wednesday evenings.

As a volunteer, Erlbaum went through training which emphasized not having favorites among the residents, not giving gifts and certainly not giving out telephone numbers or personal information. She became obsessed with being at the shelter, looking for "the one that reminds you of you." While there she meets a homeless junkie, Samantha (Sam). Sam becomes Erlbaum's special friend at the shelter and Erlbaum is moved to try to help this girl get on her feet. Sam develops several illnesses and is hospitalized, sent to drug rehab, re-hospitalized and becomes more of a burden than Erlbaum had bargained for. Yet she cares very much for Sam until a peculiarity in Sam's diagnosis begins to affect her feelings.

Janice Erlbaum relates this piece of her life with the flair of an excellent novelist. I found myself forgetting that this wasn't a story that would have a reasonable resolution. When Erlbaum begins to investigate Sam's illnesses and then search for her birth family, the book read like a mystery thriller- and I could hardly put it down.

I enjoyed the book very much and am quite impressed with Erlbaum's ability to tell her own tale with such aplomb.

Armchair Interviews says: Good book group discussion questions are at the back of the book.

In "Have You Found Her," Janice Erlbaum returns as a volunteer to the shelter that housed her as a teenager (written about in "Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir"), where she meets intelligent, drug-addicted Samantha. The two begin a mentoring relationship that takes a dramatic turn when Sam reveals that she's HIV-positive. Erlbaum brings all the anger, confusion, and heartbreak of this relationship to the page, making this a compelling, fast-paced, and gut-wrenching memoir. Not only did I not want to put it down, but I want all my friends to read it so we can talk about it.

I read Janice Erlbaum's book as a strategy for personal growth as I try to move away from codependency and enabling behavior. The book was at times painful to read. As Janice rode an emotional rollar coaster in response to Sam's crises, I saw myself, reacting to the needs of those I try "to help." I felt like a fly on the wall watching Janice chase after, coddle and sympathize with Sam. I almost felt embarrassed as Janice's possessiveness surfaced when she told Bill that Sam loved Maria more than she loved her. I have experienced that jealousy before. Although Erlbaum's book is written with brutal honesty, I was surprised she didn't acknowledge more of her own problems as she must have realized they existed through her relationship with Sam. Also, I was surprised that Bill supported Janice as she invested so much time and energy in Sam. Janice felt such anger for Sam, feeling that she had been duped. I was disappointed that Janice felt so resentful about Sam's mental illness, when she knew all along that she had problems. It seems that Janice had a hard time switching roles from "hero" to "sucker." Those who study the enneagram will see an average to unheathy "2" personality in Janice. This book helped me confront some of my own issues and grow.

Having made her way in the world, Janice Erlbaum decides to give something back to the homeless shelter at which she was a resident herself in her youth. While teaching beading classes to the young women, she befriends Sam, a resident who is both brilliant and disturbed. Janice quickly finds herself emotionally invested further and further in Sam's rehabilitation and deteriorating health.

'Have You Found Her' takes the reader on an engaging rollercoaster ride. Ms. Erlbaum's husband Bill is either painted in an especially positive light or is an incredibly accommodating individual. I'm not sure I would have been as tolerant in the same situation! I regretted not finding out what the real story/mystery was involving Sam's father, as that may have provided some answers or some kind of closure.

For anyone who has experienced rescue fantasies, Have You Found Her by Janice Erlbaum, a daily journal writer, offers a true story of a rescuer who learns and grows from her experiences. Erlbaum's engaging second memoir invites readers to investigate her first book, Girlbomb, a story of her own struggles as a teenage runaway.

In Have You Found Her, a non-fiction thriller, Erlbaum relates her efforts to repay a debt of gratitude by volunteering at the same youth shelter that helped her when she was a homeless teen. In the course of her work as the "bead lady" who shows up every Wednesday to teach the girls how to make their own jewelry, she quickly learns to how reach the girls at the shelter. Giving them something to do allows the girls to open up to her at their own pace without Erlbaum becoming intrusive in their lives.

An honest storyteller, Erlbaum shows how she struggles with the shelter's rules to maintain the distance designed to protect the girls and herself from getting too involved in each others' lives. From the start, she routinely breaks each rule as she becomes more engaged, develops favorites, and soon becomes attached to Samantha (Sam), a girl whose life parallels her own.

A writer who understands that dialogue moves the action along, Erlbaum shows the ups and downs of supporting Sam, being overwhelmed by Sam, being manipulated by Sam, feeling threatened by Sam, having compassion for Sam, and embracing Sam as she struggles with a variety of illnesses including a possible AIDS diagnosis.

At the same time, Erlbaum weaves into the story her love for Bill, the first man to love her in a humanly healthy way, her own addiction to pot, and her struggles with relationships within her family. Managing all these elements without being sappy or preachy, Erlbaum shows how relationships can grow and thrive. Using her own ambivalence toward the significant people in her life, Erlbaum chronicles her fear of having honest dialogue with others while demonstrating how her attempts at dialogue keep the relationships healthy and intact.

As Erlbaum builds suspense page by page, the reader must stay engaged to the end to find out who will ultimately survive as Erlbaum depicts her characters' metamorphoses from neediness to autonomy. Although the book gives readers an inside look at the life of a rescuer, it also is a "how-to" for showing how helping others results in personal growth and how relationships grow through compassion, support, mutual understanding, and respect.

by Susan M. Andrus
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

At the age of 15 Janice, the author, spends a few months in a homeless shelter in New York City. Because of this experience, 19 years later, she becomes a volunteer at the same shelter. When Janice meets Sam- a homeless, intelligent, drug addicted, young woman- she becomes obsessively involved with her against her better judgment. Through their roller coaster relationship the author seems to come to terms with her past.

I enjoyed the book because the author seems to honestly relate the story without trying to explain or justify the entire experience. I think in writing the book Janice may have been trying to understand the events herself. Although the ending is a bit abrupt and you are left with many questions, this is not something the author can help. As a memoir, the book is intended to relate the story from the author's perspective. If she would have changed it to "make the ending interesting" it would have defeated the purpose of writing a memoir.

HAVE YOU FOUND HER is a great, easy-to-read memoir about the author's time spent working at a homeless shelter for young girls.

Janice Erlbaum had a habit of falling for the most needy girls, the ones who always had the worst problems and needed the most help. When she meets Sam, she slowly realizes that nothing has prepared her for a girl quite like this.

The ending was a surprise, just as it was for the author. I found it both funny and sad that Janice seemed to believe so easily everything that Sam told her, even from the very beginning. Towards the end is when the reader begins to realize, along with Janice, that not everyone can be saved.

A great story, not to be missed and highly recommended.

What an amazing, amazing book. I had to keep reminding myself that it was about real people!

In this, her second memoir, Janice tells the story of volunteering at the shelter she lived in briefly as a teenage and of meeting Sam. Although the relationship she forms with Sam may ultimately have been good for her, showing her that she had internal strength she would never have guessed out. It makes for a very powerful story.

I think the most interesting part of this book was Janice's honesty about her negative feelings toward Sam. To be able to say that you're angry at a person in Sam's position takes a lot of strength. The same to admit that you have doubts about the truth of what someone you care about says to you.

And this is a memoir that is easy to read. One might always be skeptical of the claim that a memoir reads like a novel, but in this case, I found that it did. I was drawn in from the very beginning, and ended the book hoping that Ms. Erlbaum will write another memoir in the future.

there is a first book to this whitch you dont have to read but it made alot more sense to me after reading it. i work as a youth coulsulor so this book was real life to me