Review: Finding Home by Lauren McKellar

ISBN: 9780857990914
Source: Netgalley/Publisher
Format: eARC
Series: No, Stand-Alone
Release Date: October 1, 2013
Find it on Goodreads
*Disclaimer* I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

     GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:

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.

REVIEW:

For those of you who know my reading tastes, you know I have a very hard time getting into contemporary reads. I can dig romance (because I'm a sap), but regular old contemporary novels are usually not for me - with the exception of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, which I'm enjoying very much. I didn't think I would like this one very much, but I was interested in the description and was able to get a review copy through Netgalley, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I didn't necessarily love this book, but I enjoyed it for being something out of my comfort zone. It was a pretty dark novel - Amy was falling into alcoholism after her mother's death several months before. There was some sex, which usually I am okay with in YA novels because I like books that can portray true young adult relationships, but the descriptions took it a little far for me. Trust me, I've read wayyyy worse (e.g., Fifty Shades), but I wouldn't exactly be giving this one over to a young teen, say 13 or 14.

I liked Amy a lot (except for when she was being boy-obsessed, ugh) and I think watching her downward spiral then eventual rise above her circumstances was fascinating and inspiring. I also enjoyed Nick though he didn't get a lot of time, considering how obsessed she was with another boy throughout the better half of the book. Unfortunately, I didn't really like any of the other characters. Amy's best friend was a snot, her other "friends" were not very nice to her, her aunt and dad were barely even in the book. The book was extremely short, and had it been lengthened, it would've been nice to have a little more development in the other characters. Don't get me wrong, I like that the characters had their imperfections and the novel was a darker one on the YA spectrum, but I didn't like that some of the bad decisions the characters made were never acknowledged, rectified, apologized for... they were sucky people and everyone was just okay with it.

RATING: ★★★ 1/2

I enjoyed reading Finding Home, getting a taste for a darker YA novel and watching Amy overcome some very huge, very real obstacles teens face today. I wish the supporting character development and writing had been a little better but overall a pretty good contemporary read.

Have any of you read this one yet? What did you think?

A.