A Review of Sarah Lyu’s I Will Find You Again (Simon & Schuster for Young Readers, 2023)
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
I’ve been woefully behind on all of my YA reading, but I am here to rectify some of that by reviewing Sarah Lyu’s I Will Find You Again (Simon & Schuster for Young Readers, 2023).
The actual marketing description is quite curt: “Welcome to Meadowlark, Long Island—expensive homes and good schools, ambition and loneliness. Meet Chase Ohara and Lia Vestiano: the driven overachiever and the impulsive wanderer, the future CEO and the free spirit. Best friends for years—weekend trips to Montauk, sleepovers on a yacht—and then, first love. True love. But when Lia disappears, Chase’s life turns into a series of grim snapshots. Anger. Grief. Running. Pink pills in an Altoids tin. A cheating ring at school. Heartbreak and lies. A catastrophic secret. And the shocking truth that will change everything about the way Chase sees Lia—and herself.”
The reason for the brevity is that this novel contains QUITE a few major twists and turns, the likes of which I won’t fully reveal, only because I know some of you are going to read it! Thus, my review will likewise be on the shorter side. I will still place a partial spoiler warning here, precisely because I might divulge some information unintentionally. The premise is ultimately a kind of mystery: where is Lia, what has happened to her? Once we find out what has happened to Lia, more questions surface, and the novel becomes more of a kind of investigatory quest, with Chase attempting to line up the dots and figure out what’s really going on. Beyond the intriguing plot, I was really impressed by the fact that YA continues to trailblaze in terms of the topics it covers and for the diversity of representation it tends to engage. In this case, Chase is of mixed Asian ethnicities, while Lia is a Korean American transracial adoptee. Lyu is also clearly aware of a longer history of Asian American racial formation, as Chase’s background involves an ancestor who survived the Japanese American incarceration. The two characters are also engaged in a same sex relationship, and given the ways in which both characters can sometimes feel out of place, their shared racial backgrounds do prove to be a point of key connection. Indeed, the shift that the narrative ultimately takes in the last half will no doubt polarize readers (and for whatever reason, I tend myself not to enjoy these approaches to storytelling), but Lyu’s ability to weave an entertaining tale is unquestionable. Certainly, a great choice for those interested in mysteries!
Buy the Book Here
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
I’ve been woefully behind on all of my YA reading, but I am here to rectify some of that by reviewing Sarah Lyu’s I Will Find You Again (Simon & Schuster for Young Readers, 2023).
The actual marketing description is quite curt: “Welcome to Meadowlark, Long Island—expensive homes and good schools, ambition and loneliness. Meet Chase Ohara and Lia Vestiano: the driven overachiever and the impulsive wanderer, the future CEO and the free spirit. Best friends for years—weekend trips to Montauk, sleepovers on a yacht—and then, first love. True love. But when Lia disappears, Chase’s life turns into a series of grim snapshots. Anger. Grief. Running. Pink pills in an Altoids tin. A cheating ring at school. Heartbreak and lies. A catastrophic secret. And the shocking truth that will change everything about the way Chase sees Lia—and herself.”
The reason for the brevity is that this novel contains QUITE a few major twists and turns, the likes of which I won’t fully reveal, only because I know some of you are going to read it! Thus, my review will likewise be on the shorter side. I will still place a partial spoiler warning here, precisely because I might divulge some information unintentionally. The premise is ultimately a kind of mystery: where is Lia, what has happened to her? Once we find out what has happened to Lia, more questions surface, and the novel becomes more of a kind of investigatory quest, with Chase attempting to line up the dots and figure out what’s really going on. Beyond the intriguing plot, I was really impressed by the fact that YA continues to trailblaze in terms of the topics it covers and for the diversity of representation it tends to engage. In this case, Chase is of mixed Asian ethnicities, while Lia is a Korean American transracial adoptee. Lyu is also clearly aware of a longer history of Asian American racial formation, as Chase’s background involves an ancestor who survived the Japanese American incarceration. The two characters are also engaged in a same sex relationship, and given the ways in which both characters can sometimes feel out of place, their shared racial backgrounds do prove to be a point of key connection. Indeed, the shift that the narrative ultimately takes in the last half will no doubt polarize readers (and for whatever reason, I tend myself not to enjoy these approaches to storytelling), but Lyu’s ability to weave an entertaining tale is unquestionable. Certainly, a great choice for those interested in mysteries!
Buy the Book Here
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