This was so SO good! A cleverly woven tale told in two timelines about two sets of mothers and daughters. Angie is biracial and has grown up with her white mother, having never met her father (who her mother claims is dead.) While their relationship is loving, her mother is very secretive, and Angie has always felt a need to know about her past. She has an on again off again relationship with Sam, which is one of my favorite parts of the book. The author is really good at writing flawed, interesting relationships that feel authentic.

In the other timeline, we have Marilyn (Angie’s mother) and James (her father) back when they were Angie’s age, and it’s interesting to watch them slowly inching towards what we know will happen (Angie) while not knowing precisely what their ultimate fates will be. And again, this book is all about mother/daughter relationships, and Marilyn’s relationship with her mother is really what draws the two timelines together. This had great narrative voice and kept me engaged all the way through.

Trigger warnings: sexual abuse of a young child, assault, murder, domestic abuse

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.
( )

I listened to In Search of Us because it was part of the releases from Audiobooksync, 2020.

Angie loves her mother Marilyn. They live in Albuquerque and Manuel (Manny) always stands nearby helping if needed. Marilyn waitressed and works in a bank providing for Angie, and Angie has always felt loved and happy, never even realizing how hard Marilyn works to provide for Angie. When someone comments on Angie's color, Marilyn never hesitates to acknowledge her mixed-race child, for Marilyn makes clear that prejudice is unacceptable in their world. Marilyn told Angie that her father died in a car accident. When Angie sees a video created by her uncle whom she was also told had died, she realizes her father could also be alive. As much as she loves her mother, she's seventeen years old and about to graduate high school, so she would like to know the truth. Unable to tell her mother, she leaves with her friend Sam. Sam, a former boyfriend of Angie's, goes to Los Angeles every summer. This opportunity is perfect for Angie--she'll ride along, find her uncle, find her dad, and then she'll know everything. This situation is not necessarily perfect for Sam. Their relationship is complicated. Quite frankly, Angie doesn not treat Sam well. Her self-absorption makes it hard to see why Sam continually strives to have a relationship with Angie.

The novel alternates between Angie and Marilyn. Angie's story is her journey to find who she is. Marilyn's story is to acknowledge the past and come to terms with it with truth and courage. When Marilyn is seventeen years old, she falls in love. Marilyn life harbors lots of pressure. Her father died suddenly and her mother lives in her own unrealistic, optimistic world--where everything will soon be fine and we will be rich. Her mother expects Marilyn to support them with modeling and acting because she is beautiful, yet she enjoys neither. They possess little and have to move in with Marilyn's uncle, who fails to garner much sympathy or love. Marilyn meets James, an African-American, who lives downstairs. James and Marilyn are wicked smart, obviously drawn to each other. James and his brother Justin live with their grandparents because their mother passed away. Marilyn finds a home here--real love. A family that loves one another and act like a family, which is something she has never had. Marilyn amazes me because she doesn't let her circumstances limit her. She knows that college will give her a career, and she knows the career she wants--photography. She has big dreams and gets James to dream big as well. As the novel progresses, Angie and Marilyn's stories merge until the truth brings clarity and a chance to live for both women.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this novel even though it broke my heart. Secrets always rise up and pasts can't be buried. Now, the future can be accepted and even "earned." ( )

FROM AMAZON: 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. ( )

Literary Merit: Good
Characterization: Great
Recommended: Recommended
Level: High School
Angie is a seventeen year old living in present day Los Angeles with her mom, Marilyn. This is about a mother and daughter whose stories mirror each others in a way. Marilyn left home at the same age as Angie to find what she was missing and now Angie is going to do the same. In Marilyn's case it was to start a new life away from an overbearing stage mom. For Angie, its the search for her missing father. Readers familiar with 90's culture will recognize a lot of references to this era. ( )

Seventeen year old Marilyn feels trapped. She has grown up as a child actor and model, touted from agent to agent to fulfil her mother’s desire to find fame and fortune, to provide an escape from the poverty which has led them to having to move in with a volatile, disagreeable uncle. All Marilyn wants is to be able to make her own decisions, to go to university and move as far away from the superficial glitter of Hollywood as possible. Then she falls in love with James, the boy downstairs who shows her that life in the present can also be good. However, she also discovers that nothing stays the same, that life can change in an instant.
Angie is also seventeen and has been lovingly brought up single-handedly by her mother, Marilyn. She is mixed-race and knows little about her father, other than that he had died before she was born. She has felt his absence throughout her life and has always wanted to know more about him; the story her mother has told her doesn’t quite add up and she becomes aware that her mother has lied about the past. When she discovers a photograph, hidden in one of her mother’s drawers, of her mother looking totally in love with a young man, she becomes convinced that this is her father and becomes determined to find out more about her background. A chance discovery leads her to leave home and set off to Los Angeles, in search of someone who may be her unknown uncle, the brother of her father, and maybe she will discover that her father is, after all, still alive. Will her discoveries enable her to finally establish who she is and where she belongs, as well as why her mother has lied to her for so long?
This moving and engaging story is told from two perspectives, Marilyn’s during the late 1990’s and Angie’s in the present and explores their parallel quests for identity. These switches in time were handled very well and served to slowly uncover the various events which had led to Angie’s desperate need to establish her own identity. The story explored several disturbing themes, including physical and sexual abuse, racism, addiction and police brutality and I thought that these were dealt with in a sensitive, non-exploitative way, adding a credible depth to the story-telling.
The parallels in the stories of these two characters ran throughout the novel and served to highlight that past, unresolved conflicts are ever-present in the here and now and need to be dealt with in order to enable people to enjoy proper freedom of choice. Both Marilyn and Angie had suffered losses which had had an impact on how they related to each other and to other people and the story explored how important it is to know about one’s roots in order to feel safe and secure. It is often the little things, emerging from shared memories, looking at old photographs etc., which help to give us a sense of belonging and connectedness and the story illustrated well how insecure a person can feel if these are missing. It also highlighted that no one should be expected to live someone else’s dreams; we all need to feel free to follow our own.
I thought that the characterisations were convincing and that the self-absorbed angst of adolescence was well captured. I found it very easy to begin to care about the fates of each of the characters and this meant that I soon found myself emotionally engaged with their struggles, at times to the extent that I was moved to tears. I also felt that the writing captured a very vivid sense of time and place.
The nature of the themes explored make this is a thought-provoking book and, as such, I think it would make a good choice for reading groups.

My thanks to Readers First and Hot Key Books for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )