In Search of Us by Ava Dellaira - OPTIONAL

In Search of Us by Ava Dellaira, 403 pages.  Farrar Straus Giroux, 2018.  $18.  

Content: Language: R (39 swears; 26 “f”); Mature Content: R; Violence: PG-13.  

BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

Angie is going to Los Angeles to get answers about who her father is/was because whenever Angie asks her mother, Marilyn, about him, Marilyn cries and doesn’t share a whole lot.  The story flashes back and forth between 17yo Marilyn’s life and the relationship she had with a boy named James, and seventeen-year-old Angie who is trying to figure out what really happened to her father James.  Mixed throughout both stories is young love, mother/daughter relationships and heartache and hope.  

I enjoyed this story and felt drawn into both Marilyn and Angie’s stories.  The back and forth between the two girl’s stories helped to build up the climax and built empathy for each character.  The content includes on page sex, underage drinking, smoking marijuana and a physical fight which isn’t graphic but is upsetting.  

Reviewer, C. Peterson