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Summary
Summary
The author of the beloved Love Letters to the Dead returns with a sweeping multi-generational story of a single mother and her biracial daughter, each at age seventeen.
To seventeen-year-old Angie, who is mixed-race, Marilyn is her hardworking, devoted white single mother. But Marilyn was once young, too. When she was seventeen, Marilyn 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 Los Angeles 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.
Alternating between Angie's present-day journey and Marilyn's romance set against the backdrop of LA in the '90s, the stories of In Search of Us intertwine to create a powerful tale about secrets and lies, race and identity, and mothers and daughters.
Praise for In Search of Us :
"A rare and special book. Part mother-daughter love story, part road trip journey, part compelling mystery, and one hundred percent beautiful, spellbinding tearjerker. I'm in love with every page."
--Jennifer Niven, New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places and Holding Up the Universe
"A masterful work of fiction. Exploring race and mother and daughter relationships, this novel is also one of the most tender and authentic takes on first love that I have ever read."
--Jennifer Mathieu, author of MOXIE
Author Notes
Ava Dellaira is the author of Love Letters to the Dead , which was sold in 25 foreign territories and has been optioned for film. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow. She grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago. She was an associate producer of Stephen Chbosky's feature film adaptation of his bestselling novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Dellaira's debut novel, Love Letters to the Dead, was good; her second, which tells two connected tales set 18 years apart, is spectacular. First comes the story of 17-year-old Marilyn, whose mother is so committed to her daughter's future stardom that she moves them into a tiny Los Angeles apartment with Marilyn's unwelcoming, alcoholic uncle. But Marilyn's vision of her future involves going to college, taking photos, and making a life with her smart and handsome new neighbor, James. Next comes the present-day story of Marilyn's biracial daughter, Angie, also 17, who wonders about the father she never met. Did he really die in a car crash? Does she have relatives who look like her? Will knowing her past help her find her way forward? Past and present collide when Angie runs away from Albuquerque to L.A. to find the man she thinks may be her uncle. Readers will be left sobbing, both for the characters they've come to love and for the state of the country-Dellaira draws on persistent racial divides to craft an ending that is surprising yet inevitable, heartbreaking, and hopeful. Ages 12-up. Agent: Richard Florest, Rob Weisbach Creative Management. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Seventeen-year-old biracial Angie grew up believing her father was dead. When she discovers her mom ("the kind...other kids ought to be jealous of") might have lied, Angie sets off to learn the truth. Chapters alternate between Angie's present-day story and that of her mother, Marilyn, as a teenager. Though the prose can be overwrought, Dellaria's portrayal of family dynamics is sympathetic and complex. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Angie has never known her father, so she doesn't know that her athleticism is an echo of his own. She does know that he is black; one glance in the mirror confirms that. Her white mother, Marilyn, says that Angie's father died in a car accident. But a series of discoveries leads Angie to believe that he might actually be alive and living in Los Angeles. So Angie embarks on a secret mission to discover the truth. As Angie's quest to find her father unfolds, alternating chapters flash back to the doomed romance between Marilyn and Angie's father, James. Although the lovers share a genuine connection, their relationship is strained by the racist disapproval of Marilyn's uncle. Both stories are engaging, packed with cultural references from their respective periods. But the most poignant aspect of the story is Angie's need to connect with the African American side of her family. Like Shannon Gibney's See No Color (2015), this novel offers a thoughtful examination of racial identity, which will likely be relevant to many teens.--Colson, Diane Copyright 2018 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-A coming-of-age novel about all kinds of love, this is a realistic look into how teens' lives intertwine with their parents' pasts. The initial time line begins with Angie, a 17-year-old daughter of a single mother, leaving home to find answers about her past. Angie is searching for the truth about her father and his family, whom she never knew. The second narrative follows Marilyn, Angie's mother at 17. Marilyn is working through obstacles in her life that center around her unhinged family life and newfound love, James. Dellaira uses the two parallel threads to explore what it would be like for a young woman to know her mother's story and realize how it is also her own. Readers will be drawn into Marilyn's tale and keep wondering until the very end how Angie fits in. Some sexual situations are present but are not explicit. Readers who enjoyed Dellaira's Love Letters to the Dead or Emery Lord's When We Collided will fall in love with this title. VERDICT A must for collections where the author's previous work is popular and where realistic love stories circulate well.-Elizabeth Pelayo, St. Charles East High School, IL © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Mother and daughter move through parallel journeys separated by time but connected by introspection in Dellaira's (Love Letters to the Dead, 2014) latest.Told in alternating voices and timelines, this narrative explores two young women's searches for completion. Marilyn Miller, 17 in the late 1990s and dreaming of the freedom of college, must contend with her mother's plans for her to become a rising star in Hollywood. Stretched to the breaking point between the promise of self-determination and the weight of her mother's hopes, Marilyn, a blonde white girl, finds relief and unexpected romance with her enigmatic black neighbor, James. Fast-forward 18 years to meet Angie Miller, Marilyn and James' biracial daughter, who has lived her entire life believing her father was dead. When she discovers that her mother has lied about this, Angie journeys to Los Angeles with her ex-boyfriend Sam (also biracial, with a white father and Mexican mother) to find the missing pieces that have distanced her from Sam. Exploring the dynamic tension between identity and relationships, and the realities of violence and racism (although less so white privilege), the separate narratives converge to tell one family's story of pain and loss, love and forgiveness. Time jumps occasionally disrupt cohesion, and readers unfamiliar with the '90s may find Marilyn's narrative irksomely referential, but overall, this is a compelling intergenerational tale.Achingly vibrant. (Fiction. 14-adult) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
