[Review] In Search of Us - Ava Dellaira

Summary: This sweeping multi-generational love story introduces readers to mother-and-daughter pair Marilyn and Angie. To seventeen-year-old Angie, who is mixed-race, Marilyn is her hardworking, devoted white single mother. But Marilyn was once young, too.

When Marilyn was seventeen, she fell in love with Angie's father, James, who was African-American. But Angie's never met him, and Marilyn has always told her he died before she was born. When Angie discovers evidence of an uncle she's never met she starts to wonder:

What if her dad is still alive, too? So she sets off on a journey to find him, hitching a ride to LA from her home in New Mexico with her ex-boyfriend, Sam. Along the way, she uncovers some hard truths about herself, her mother, and what truly happened to her father. (Pub Date: Mar 6, 2018)

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

I wasn't ready for something so beautiful.

Told in two timelines, we follow Marilyn's romance with her neighbor, who is a black boy, while she struggles to follow her mother's dream and bear with her uncle's addiction to gambling. And we also follow her daughter's search for her father eighteen years later, having been lied to a whole life Angie comes across an article on her uncle, who was supposedly dead. Now she has a chance to travel all the way to LA, even if she has to beg her ex-boyfriend Sam for a hike.

There is a number of books that explore social themes very directly, this isn't one. And yet, the issues are so present it stings. I was very fond of how subtly Dellaira introduced it all. The relationship issues between Marilyn's mother and her grandmother, then between Marilyn herself and her mother, and finally between Marilyn and Angie, as each generation tries to be better than the preceding but fails in other parts for overcompensating. It's beautiful!

When I thought it would end there, the underlying problem of prejudice on Angie's paternal family side emerged. Unfortunately, that wasn't as beautiful. This book doesn't ask you to think about it, it shows the characters' reality and its consequences; it made me feels anxious at times; at others, very bitter.

Both main characters had their own way of thinking and reacting, everyone was very round and well developed. I'm not fond of drama YA's, I like have fun with them, swooning over my book boyfriends. And yet, this was so well written, it was a pleasure. Also, it had the right doses of drama, in no moment I felt the author overdid it. On the contrary, the story just kept going like life, with no time to digest.

It's a great book for a book club! And it'll also appeal to older crowds, not only for the quality of the narrative but also for the flashbacks. Having been a teenager in the 90's myself, I felt like going back in time whenever the narrator changed to Marilyn.

So why not give it five stars? It is kind of a personal system and it's inevitable to compare. This was good but it wasn't the best, if you get what I mean. Additionally, it just stood out for quality. When you think of the plot, girl searching for a father she's never met, there isn't much new there. But this just means it wasn't stellar, it's still a solid four-star read. I can't think of someone not to recommend this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.