The author of the beloved Love Letters to the Dead returns with a parallel YA story of a mother and daughter each at age seventeen. The mother's tale recounts the summer she fell in love and set out on her own path, while the daughter's story is about her search for her unknown father. This sweeping multi-generational love story introduces readers to mother-and-daughter pair Marilyn and Angie. 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. In Search of Us by Ava Dellaira is a touching young adult novel about identity, family, and finding yourself in those you love. "Dellaira's debut novel, Love Letters to the Dead, was good; her second, which tells two connected tales set 18 years apart, is spectacular. 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." -- Publishers Weekly , starred review "A coming-of-age novel about all kinds of love, this is a realistic look into how teens' lives intertwine with their parents' pasts. Readers who enjoyed Dellaira's L ove Letters to the Dead or Emery Lord's When We Collided will fall in love with this title." -- School Library Journal ".[A] compelling intergenerational tale.
Achingly vibrant." -- Kirkus Reviews "The most poignant aspect of the story is Angie's need to connect with the African American side of her family . this novel offers a thoughtful examination of racial identity." -- Booklist "[Dellaira] successfully uses photography as a metaphor to demonstrate how people can view the same subjects from many different perspectives. Beautiful prose makes this novel perfect for readers who appreciate layered meaning and vivid, original imagery." -- VOYA.