JANIE FACE TO FACE by Caroline B. Cooney

Thank you to Caroline B. Cooney for sharing Janie with readers one final time.  I enjoyed all the Janie books, but I didn't know we would be treated to yet another.  It is a nice conclusion to her story.

For those of you who haven't read the Janie saga, it starts with a teenage girl eating lunch with her friends in the high school cafeteria.  When Janie looks at her milk carton, she recognizes the face of the missing child pictured on the carton.  It is her own picture at the age of three.  What follows is a captivating story about how Janie had been kidnapped and left to be raised by another family.  She struggles with the fact that she loves this second family and has actually forgotten her original family.  She knows if she reports the discovery of this picture and her true identity, she will be ruining the lives of people she has come to know and love.  Eventually she is introduced to her biological family and then she must learn to adjust to having two families.

In this new and final book, JANIE FACE TO FACE, Janie is in college and trying to live independently of her families and the crazy media circus her story created.  Living with people who don't know her past is a refreshing change.  When she meets a nice young man, she even thinks she may have met someone who could replace her beloved Reeve.

Janie isn't really ready to introduce Michael to either of her families, but he manages to arrive on scene when Janie is visiting the parents she refers to as her "kidnap" family.  When Janie discovers Michael taking pictures of her father on his phone and texting them to an all too familiar phone number, she knows his intentions toward her are suspect.  Since the phone number she recognizes belongs to author supposedly writing a questionable book about her kidnapping, she realizes Michael has only gotten close to her to further the research he has been hired to do for the author. 

Her frustration and fear drive her to hop on a flight to visit Reeve.  The trip rekindles their romance and has them both realizing they never want to be apart again.

In alternating sections readers also meet Janie's kidnapper.  Hannah has new plans of her own.  Having never forgiven her own parents and the little three year old Janie who she sees as having ruined her life, Hannah is out to get revenge.  She is plotting a way to get even, but if Janie's family and friends have anything to do with it, she just might end up spending the rest of her life in prison.

Any readers out there who haven't discovered the FACE ON THE MILK CARTON and the other related books, go straight to your library or local bookstore and get your hands on this classic series.  You won't regret it!