What would you do if you found out the life you’d lived was a lie? After the death of her father and stepmother, Kelli Huddleston finds information in her father’s safe that points to her family—the family she has always believed to have died in a fire when she was a baby—is alive. Desiring to learn what happened, why her father thought it best to run with her, Kelli makes the drive across the country from California to a small Tennessee town in hopes of finding out information so she can return home and go back to her plans for the future. Once in town, Kelli finds it difficult to leave. After meeting her father’s best friend, her mother, and her sister, Kelli is confused and disappointed that her father was the kind of man she’s find out he was. Determined to make amends to these people, Kelli sticks around for the summer. What she doesn’t count on is the friendships, the feeling of belonging, and the love that is poured into her.
This is the third of Kathryn Cushman’s books that I’ve read and every time I am amazed and moved by her ability to pull a reader into the emotional turmoil of her main characters. Kelli’s struggle to find herself, to come to terms with the man her father—her hero—truly was, to befriend her sister knowing she will be leaving at the end of the summer to never see her again is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. Then you through in the budding romance and Kelly’s life gets more complicated. As a resident of Tennessee (although a larger one), the small town is not at all difficult to picture. A story of finding truth, healing, friendship, and making the right choice instead of the easy choice, Finding Me is one that will stick with you long after you’ve read the last sentence.
***Bethany House provided me with a copy of this book (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest and fair review. All opinions expressed are my own.
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