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What Janie Found (Janie Johnson #4)

3.61 of 5 stars 3.61 · rating details · 3,342 ratings · 157 reviews

Janie’s two families appear to have made peace. Life seems almost normal. She’s even decided to speak to her former boyfriend, Reeve, again. But then Janie’s Connecticut father suffers a sudden stroke, and this tragedy leaves her mother reeling. Janie must step in to manage family finances and to support her mother emotionally.

While handling her father’s business matters,...more

Paperback, 192 pages

Published February 12th 2002 by Laurel Leaf (first published January 11th 2000)

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Nov 25, 2012 Talia is currently reading it

“What Janie Found” by Caroline B. Cooney, is a marvelous novel, which is part of a series. “What Janie Found” includes lots of mysteries, romance, and drama. Caroline is always keeping readers on the edge of their seats after every chapter concludes. Janie, the protagonist, is a curious, sensitive character. She often wants to find out unrevealed news about her identity. But, when she uncovers a mystery, she wishes she never discovered it and she could move on with her life. When Janie’s family...more

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Sep 05, 2012 Diana rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012, young-adult

This is the fourth and last in Cooney's Janie series. Janie discovers that her father had been sending money to the woman who kidnapped her. She has to deal with her anger at his deception while at the same time cope with her grief and fear because he has suffered a heart attack and stroke and may not survive. She decides to set out to meet the woman who kidnapped her and find out the answers to her many questions about her kidnapping.

Cooney has a gift for capturing adolescence: the conflicting...more

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Sep 14, 2010 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-sep-read, 2010-read

The final book in this series of four about Janie Johnson, the missing girl who saw her own picture on a milk carton. In this book, Janie's adoptive father has just suffered a stroke, and is unable to do anything. Janie is now responsible for handling all of his paperwork, as her mother is not able to do it.

Whilst sorting things out, Janie finds a folder marked HJ (the Johnson's daughter, Hannah, who kidnapped her). She is shocked to realize that her father might have known all along that she ha...more

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Dec 04, 2011 Whitney rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult

Janie's Connecticut father has suffered a stroke/heart attack and Janie has been assigned to putting his office in order. Among the cabinet drawers she finds a thin file marked H.J. -- Hannah Javenson, Miranda and Frank Johnson's biological daughter, the woman who kidnapped Jennie Spring and set all this turmoil in motion. In this file Janie found a checkbook in which Frank has been mailing checks to his child for the last three years, postmarked to Colorado. Colorado, where her older brother St...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Kieryn rated it 1 of 5 stars

What Janie found is the ending to the series of the Face on the Milk Carton. It is about Janie, the main character trying to get answers from her kiddnapper. She must lie on her journey to find her answers.
I didn't really like this book. The author's thoughts were not organized. There is dialouge then a pause to describe what the person was thinking. Then, there would be a flashback or something that the speaker liked. The chapters were confusing as well. One scene would be about Janie, then t...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Isabelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

So far in this book, Janie Johnson has been thinking about her Conneticuit father who's in the hospital because he had a stroke and a heart attack. Reeve, Janie's neighbor, and Brian, Janie's brother, were staying with Janie and her Conneticuit mother throughout the beginning of the summer.
Janie found a folder on Hannah (her kidnapper and the Johnson's daughter) while sorting through bills and folders in her Conneticuit dad's desk. Reeve and Brian also saw the folder, and the expression on Janie...more So far in this book, Janie Johnson has been thinking about her Conneticuit father who's in the hospital because he had a stroke and a heart attack. Reeve, Janie's neighbor, and Brian, Janie's brother, were staying with Janie and her Conneticuit mother throughout the beginning of the summer.
Janie found a folder on Hannah (her kidnapper and the Johnson's daughter) while sorting through bills and folders in her Conneticuit dad's desk. Reeve and Brian also saw the folder, and the expression on Janie's face, and they all got interested and suspicious about the contents of the folder.

Janie Johnson hasn't changed that much in this book, but she's changed from the first book in this series-The Face On The Milk Carton. In that book, she first didn't know that she was kidnapped, but when she found out, she wanted to refuse it, but she knew that it was real. When she met the Springs (her birth family) in the next book, she disliked them and wanted to go home to the parents she's been living with for most of her life. In the third book-The Voice On The Radio- Janie started liking her birth family, especially after she, her sister and her younger brother heard Reeve telling their story on the radio. (Janie couldn't tell her new parents what happened, because they'd been through too much with their daughter Hannah kidnapping Janie.

End of the book reading response:
I found out that in this book most of the characters changed and became closer to each other. Stephen, changed the most because when Janie, Reeve and Brian went to Colorado to visit Stephen at college, he bought Janie a pair of boots. Since then Stephen has treated Janie like a normal sister-not like a kidnapped sister who chose her other family to live with. Also, Janie and Brian forgave Reeve for what he did in the last book (The Voice on the Radio), so it seems as though Reeve and Janie are back together again. Stephen changed for another reason. First he liked a girl named Kathleen but when he found out that her father worked for the FBI, he didn't like them anymore since he had to deal with to many agents during the kidnapping case. Later in the book he learned how to forgive like how Janie forgave Reeve. Janie seemed to have also changed throughout the series because in the first book she didn't want the kidnapping to be real. In this book (the fourth and final book of the series) she wanted to meet Hannah and speak to her and help her Connecticut father pay his ransom to Hannah with the help of Reeve and Brian.
Overall, this book was about happiness and sadness, forgiveness and understanding. It was about two families who were each torn up into pieces, came together, and helped each other through very challenging times.(less)

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Apr 06, 2013 Shyann Duncan rated it 3 of 5 stars

As a conclusion to the series, this was a good book. It was far from my favorite, but I liked it. At first, I did not understand why Janie was so mad about what her dad was doing. I did not think it was a big deal because, after all, it was his daughter! Any good father would try to take care of his daughter, even if she did something terrible, unthinkable! As I read on, though, I could kind of understand how Janie felt. But all together, she had been through so much that it was just everything...more

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Nov 01, 2010 Vanessa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read What Janie Found by Caroline B. Cooney. The book is the companion to the Face on the Milk Carton, What ever Happened to Janie, and Voice on the Radio. This series is about Janie finding out that she is not a Johnson but a Spring. She finds out that she was kidnapped, not by her Johnston family but but their daughter, Hannah. Janie's boyfriend then goes to collage and goes on a radio station. He then starts telling stories about Janie. Janie soon finds out and gets mad at him. In this book...more

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May 17, 2011 Brianna K rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: action-adventure, realistic-fiction

What Janie Found is the last book in the four part series. The 'Milk Carton' series was a really good series. In this book Janie's 'father' has had a stroke and is in critical condition. While he is in the hospital, Janie has the duty of doing the bills and all of those things. When she was going through some of the bills she noticed something peculiar about Hannah. She wants to know why her father does this. She learns where Hannah is located, and it's somewhere where a close 'relative' lives....more

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Apr 17, 2010 Janis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Young Adult novel. The fourth and final book in the series about Janie Johnson, the missing girl on the milk carton. Janie's (adoptive) father has had a stroke/heart attack, and Janie must shoulder his paperwork responsibilities, since her mother has never dealt with any of it, and is herself weakening. Janie finds a folder that tells her where she can find Hannah, the woman who kidnapped her years earlier and whose motives remain a mystery for all involved. I read the other books eagerly, and b...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Randi rated it 3 of 5 stars

After 10/15 years, I finally completed the series. The last time I read the third in the quartet was when I was a freshman in high school. I happen to get the last one as a freebie so I took my chance to read it now. I loved it in middle school/high school with the first three books, but when I finished the last one, I had more questions that I wish the author could answer, mostly about other characters than the main character, Jane. It was not too bad to read the point of the view of a "kidnape...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Janie rated it 3 of 5 stars

The fourth book in the Janie johnson series asks the question everyone wants to know about. Where is Hannah? And why did she kidnap Janie? This is the loose end Janie wants to tie. After discovering Hannah's whereabouts, she is left with the decision if she confront her kidnapper or leave it be? With Reeve and Brian taggin along, Janie is sure to find the right answer.

I found this was a great end to the series. Everything tied up nicely in the end, answering most of the questions. The conclusion...more

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Sep 26, 2012 2 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

I thought this was a mysterious and great book. At the end of every chapter you were almost about to burst you want to find out what happens next. Its really annoying when you have to put the book down right in the middle of a great part, witch the whole book was great. In the whole series this and the first book were the best in my opinion. I think the first book deserves a 10/10 the second book 8/10 the third witch was my lest favorite was a 7/10 and the last was a 10/10. I did not care for th...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Mandi Alva rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this book as well as the rest of the series. It was an interesting conept to read about. I thought there was no way that they could continue with the storyline after the second book but I was plesantly surprised to find that they could! I love reading about how Janie interacts with her brothers and sister. Also I love the way she handles having two sets of parents. She doesn't always get everything right but she tries her hardest. Just like anyone would if this were to happen in...more

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Dec 15, 2012 zapkode.marie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebooks

{my thoughts} - This book summed up the entire series in a sense. I wasn’t pleased with the different point of views in which it had been written. It had switched from Janie, Reeve and Brian throughout the book which was more then annoying in my honest opinion. I was actually rather surprised at what she had found but even more surprised that she and Reeve had gotten back together after the last book. I also couldn’t believe how well both families were getting along that they allowed their non-k...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Natalie Rock rated it 4 of 5 stars

What Janie found was a very good book it answered all of the questions. It really showed all of the feelings that Stephen and had how angry and upset he was. I didn't like how in all of the books they are going to meet Hannah then they don't and it keeps on going till the final decision they had to make. I thought it was to much back and forth between those decisions. I think this was a good ending for the book and series. I liked how the book jumped in right away to what she found there wasn't...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Gayle Francis Moffet rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, march-2012, series, ya-lit, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. One of the great things about the Janie books is that the anger and fear feel very real. Two families have had their lives torn apart, and Cooney doesn't shy away from the fact that the story in her series would cause people to think dark, disturbing thoughts and be unhappy and angry.

Throughout the Janie books, Stephen (Janie's biological brother) has been the angriest of all the characters. He has spent his life being in charge of keeping all his siblings safe from other kidnappers, and it has...more One of the great things about the Janie books is that the anger and fear feel very real. Two families have had their lives torn apart, and Cooney doesn't shy away from the fact that the story in her series would cause people to think dark, disturbing thoughts and be unhappy and angry.

Throughout the Janie books, Stephen (Janie's biological brother) has been the angriest of all the characters. He has spent his life being in charge of keeping all his siblings safe from other kidnappers, and it has worn on him. He is tired of being the responsible one, the mature one, the one who needs to constantly be on guard even more than the others, and he has escaped to Colorado. Colorado is far away from New Jersey and all the people who have made his life painful and strange. It was fantastic to read a book that concentrated on Stephen and his journey into figuring how how to deal with Janie. The other books have concentrated on Janie and her Connecticut family, Jody (Janie's biological sister), and Janie's biological parents. What Janie Found is Stephen's story as much as it is Janie's, the both of them working to come to final terms with what life has handed them against their will.

Cooney's tense, quick-paced style maintains in this as well as the other Janie books. She writes people who are genuinely angry and who make questionable (if not full-out bad) decisions. She puts her characters into situations that are absolutely hellish psychologically. Janie, already wrung out from three books of confusion and emotional toil, has to tackle the biggest issue of all: What about Hannah? Janie finds out where Hannah is, and she desperately wants to meet her face-to-face so that they're forced to come to a conclusion. The conclusion? It's precisely the kind of conclusion one should expect from the series: emotionally satisfying but personally frustrating, reminding the reader as well as the characters that just because you want something to be true (or not), you'll have to make do with what life hands you and your own understanding of how your decisions affect more than you.(less)

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Jul 17, 2010 Kenny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: advisory-2010-2011

Review on What Janie Found

By: Caroline B. Cooney

This is one remarkably outstanding book that I had to read ever. It deals with a girl named Janie who in terms find out that she was kidnapped by a girl named Hannah. Hannah kidnapped Janie and ran away from her own family. Hannah gave this baby girl in which she kidnapped to her family. Hannah's family has no clue that their baby girl, Janie was kidnapped. Our story also starts from Stephen's view point, because it starts out with him beginning co...more

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Mar 15, 2010 Breanna F rated it 3 of 5 stars

What Janie Found

What Janie Found by Caroline B Cooney is the thrilling 4th and last book in the series the Face On The Milk Carton.
Janie has just finished the stress of staying with her real family or her fake. However, Janie's pain isn't over yet.
Janie again has chosen her fake parents, but her fake father has sadly suffered stroke and is in the hospital. And now, Janie is in charge of the bills. But when Janie finds a folder labeled H.J it can only mean one thing, Hannah Javenson, her kidnapp...more

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Oct 28, 2007 Viktoria Jean rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: MILKCARTON KIDS

Shelves: caroline-b-cooney

What Janie Found is the final conclusion to the JANIE Quartet. The story of Janie Johnson first began with Caroline B. Cooney's The Face on the Milk Carton, a book that was made into a TV movie about a teenager who recognizes her own three-year-old face on a milk carton and discovers that she had been kidnapped years before.
Two additional books, What Happened to Janie? and The Voice on the Radio, continued the remarkable story of a girl who somehow needed to blend her present life and family wi...more What Janie Found is the final conclusion to the JANIE Quartet. The story of Janie Johnson first began with Caroline B. Cooney's The Face on the Milk Carton, a book that was made into a TV movie about a teenager who recognizes her own three-year-old face on a milk carton and discovers that she had been kidnapped years before.
Two additional books, What Happened to Janie? and The Voice on the Radio, continued the remarkable story of a girl who somehow needed to blend her present life and family with the life and family from which she had been taken. Readers who followed Janie's trail from the first discovery of her real family to her final decision about which name to use are in for even more revelations in What Janie Found.

The highlight of the series came when Janie thought she had found out her real birth mystery and the kidnapping case that changed her life forever. But then she found more more puzzling clues that did not match her theory then. As Cooney's latest book opens, Janie is as angry as she has ever been. Mr. Johnson has had a stroke; Janie is paying bills for him when she comes across a file and discovers that the life she has so carefully sorted out is in fact a fantasy spun by people who supposedly loved her. Reeve, her former boyfriend, and Brian, the younger brother from her original family, immediately sense a change in Janie and set about trying first to uncover the secret Janie's found and then to help her solve the additional mystery that surfaces. Janie, however, has determined never to let anyone close to her again. A part of Janie feels guilty trying to touch the past and make logic out of her life, but she devises a plan that includes taking Reeve and Brian to visit Brian's older brother, Stephen, in Colorado. Things don't go exactly as planned. Janie and her estranged brother Stephen must grapple with the residue of the long ago kidnapping, searching for ways to reconnect to their families and to each other. By solving this additional mystery, they are able to find a way back home. They simply need to find the courage to do the right thing.
Janie's life also seems to be moving along smoothly as she adjusts to her two sets of parents and learns to love her brothers and sister. While going through files in her father's desk, she makes a startling discovery. This must have been very shocking for Janie, who thought that this mystery was long solved and ended. This discovery takes her, Reeve, and Brian to Boulder to try to find the reason why Hannah Javensen took Janie away from her family so many years ago.
Finding Hannah could mean betrayal and hurt for both of her families. Is it better to forget revenge and leave the past buried, or to try to locate Hannah? The decision she makes will affect both of her family's lives forever. Can they handle any more? Moreover, can Janie handle dredging up the past, or is it time to forgive?
In the end, she pays Hannah the full amount of 'ransom' her adoptive parents had paid all these years. And the story ends with her saying that she had found her true family. This is the beauty in the Janie Quartet, lying among the twists and ups and downs of the plot, and I believe was also what the author had hoped to find in writing the series- Finding your one true place. Home. I felt glad when Janie finally discovered the full set of the truth, despite many heartbreaks and pauses in her pursue of the truth. What she got in the end was just as good a reward.
(less)

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Oct 29, 2012 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contest-shelf

This book is the last of the "Face on the Milk Carton" series. I liked the way Janie begins to accept her biological family as well as her kidnap family, but I wanted more information about why Hannah kidnapped her in the first place. I didn't like the fact that the reader was left in the dark regarding this. I would also have like to know exactly what Janie's kidnap dad knew about Hannnah, and exactly why he was sending her money. Overall, I enjoyed the 4 book series.

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Sep 28, 2012 Merrill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

What a rip-off. I just read all four books in this series with the sole purpose of finding out what really happened to Janie on the day she was kidnapped and there's no resolution? Really? Such a cop-out.

The writing wasn't even that good. Granted, I'm not the target audience, but I guess middle schoolers are more forgiving. All I can say is, book 5 (due out in January) better put this to bed 'cause I've had just about enough of Janie and her tornado of red hair. I want the FBI report.

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Jun 14, 2010 Galen He rated it 4 of 5 stars

Even though i haven't read the first three books to the series, I still thought this book was interesting. I might have gotten lost sometimes, but the action was enough to help me finish the book. There was enough detail that helped me understand the book more. I thought it was shocking that Janie had to manage the family finances by herself and also help out her mother.
If you like to read a book about something that could terribly can happen to your family, this is the book for you. It is fu...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Raksha Krishnan rated it 5 of 5 stars

The book was quite suspenseful. Since 5th grade, when I found out about the Janie Johnson Series, I have been in love with them. Janie's character has changed a lot since the beginning and the mystery of her life has been this big factor. What Janie Found is not the conclusion and the next books are What Janie Saw and Janie Face to Face. What you will love is the suspense, mystery, and of course the hopes to see, Will Janie's Kidnapper see justice?

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Feb 13, 2011 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Janie discovers a file of Hannah Javenson, the daughter of her fake parents and the person that kidnapped Janie, in her dad's file cabinet. She flies to Boulder with Reeve and Brian to find Hannah but Stephen (Janie and Brian's brother) goes to school there so they have to pretend that they are visiting him. This was the last book of the series and I thought it was pretty good. I didn't really like the ending though because I expected them to actually find Hannah but they didn't. I would recomme...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

This one was a lot of fun. I felt so bad for Jamie as she began her life and everything that she had done. Imagine everything you knew - or thought you knew - being stripped away. Imagine starting over; imagine beginning again.

(Spoiler)
Imagine confirming that YES, you were kidnapped, and yes, you were going to find your birth parents. I couldn't.

The book is all about how Jamie (and everyone else) deals with it.

Five stars!

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Apr 19, 2010 Jin added it

Shelves: 09-10-quarter-3

Janie's father has a stroke and she is taking care of the family. Janie finds a folder marked 'H.J'. Her brother Brian and Reeve want to help to find out about Mr. Johnson had been sending money to his dead daughter Hannah. They find out that she may be living in Boulder, Colorado. So they went on an adaventure to find Hannah. for the rest of the stpry, I want to keep it a secret. Read it and it's pretty interesting.

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May 04, 2013 Lauren Reed rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm conflicted. I loved the plot, how the characters interacted, and the change in setting. But the whole book was leading up to one thing - which never happened. I was disappointed at the end. I was geared up and ready for a confrontation that didn't ever come. While I enjoyed the amount of Stephen that was present in this book, it still doesn't take the second book's place as my favorite in the series so far.

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Apr 18, 2013 7706lily rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think my favorite types of books are books like these, common issues, but with a twist. What Janie Found is the final book in the Face on the Milk Carton series and ends it very well. Janie's kidnap father becomes ill and is sent to the hospital and she must take care of the bills. While doing this Janie finds out about something very important in her story. I would recommend reading this series to anyone who likes kidnapping stories or mysteries.

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Nov 22, 2011 Kyra F rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was very suspenseful and realistic. It had lots of surprising changes and always left you hanging at an intense moment because it is told from many different characters' perspectives. You really feel what Janie feels and always ask yourself what you would do, as she finally decides what to do with the rest of her mixed up life. The characters in the book like Janie, her sister, and their three brothers, are very similar to any other teenagers or big families. Although it wasn't very ex...more

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About Caroline B. Cooney

Caroline Cooney knew in sixth grade that she wanted to be a writer when "the best teacher I ever had in my life" made writing her main focus. "He used to rip off covers from The New Yorker and pass them around and make us write a short story on whichever cover we got. I started writing then and never stopped!"
When her children were young, Caroline started writing books for young people -- with rem...more

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Books by Caroline B. Cooney

The Face on the Milk Carton (Janie Johnson, #1)

Whatever Happened to Janie? (Janie Johnson, #2)

The Voice on the Radio (Janie Johnson, #3)

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Quotes from What Janie Found

“But I found my family.
I found the right thing to do.
I found the way home.” — 11 people liked it

“Stephen had just come from a class discussion in which several students believed that the right cup of herbal tea would save them from pain and sorrow. Well acquainted with pain and sorrow, Stephen did not contribute to the discussion. He merely crossed these idiots off his list of possible friends.” — 8 people liked it

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What Janie Found (Janie Johnson #4)

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