Finding Home by Lauren K. McKellar

Published by Escape Publishing on October 1, 2013

156 pages

Synopsis

Moody, atmospheric, and just a little bit punk, Finding Home takes contemporary YA to a new level of grit...

When Amy’s mum dies, the last thing she expects is to be kicked off her dad’s music tour all the way to her Aunt Lou in a depressing hole of a seaside town. But it’s okay — Amy learned how to cope with the best, and soon finds a hard-drinking, party-loving crowd to help ease the pain.

The only solace is her music class, but even there she can’t seem to keep it together, sabotaging her grade and her one chance at a meaningful relationship. It takes a hard truth from her only friend before Amy realises that she has to come to terms with her past, before she destroys her future.

Being on the road with a rockstar dad is hard. But having him send you away is even harder. Amy surely wasn’t a fan of her dad’s decision to let her stay at her aunt’s. Branded as the ‘new girl’ at her new school, she meets some friends- friends who know how to party. Parties are fun but they also get out of control. A book about bad influences, bad decisions and bad experiences, Finding Home is the epitome of what a mess a teenager’s life can be.

Finding Home focused a lot on character development. I really appreciate that in a book- when the author takes time to build her characters- so despite my great apprehension towards the main character, I still liked the book. Amy was a difficult protagonist- I hated her actions a lot but I couldn’t really hate her because she was just another misguided teen. That said, she did a lot of stupid things and I couldn’t help but want to slap her half the time I was reading. I was frustrated by her and her naivety. I do understand that the author intended for us to see and watch a careless young girl who eventually realizes the wrongness of her actions- there was a purpose behind Amy’s character after all.

Every breath took effort; the pain was all‐consuming. It was weird to think that before Mum had died I had thought I was sad. I hadn’t known that sadness could physically hurt you, could ache and sting like someone was attacking you, stabbing you.

The story touched a lot of dark topics, namely, alcoholism, grief and family problems. The author handled each delicately- you could see how good of a writer she was by the way she executed said issues. By the end of the story, I realized that I liked Finding Home despite my previous misgivings. Aside from how it handled sensitive topics, I also liked two characters, specifically Lily and Nick. Oh, Nick. I liked him so much. (He’s such a nice guy I can’t even.)

He loved me. Amy Detrinella, daughter of a famous pop star and ex‐bitch extraordinaire.

Unfortunately for me, the romance in the story was subtle, barely there, because Amy was more than just a little blind. It does leave on a romantic note though and that was pretty cute. Finding Home isn’t fluffy. It deals with a gloomier side of YA and is a lot deeper than what I expected. Although Amy was immature, the story itself was written with a certain maturity. Finding Home, as you ponder about it, grows to be more impressive. It’s a hard story to embrace because the reality of the situation is hard to accept but ultimately, the book was an eye-opener.

Rating: