I Will Find You Again by Sarah Lyu

Welcome Back, Booklovers! I don't always read YA Thriller but something about I Will Find You Again intrigued me. Simon & Schuster reached out to me asking me if I wanted to cover it for WOC Read and I agreed unsure of what to expect. 

In the Long Island town of Meadowlark lives Chase Ohara, a young Asian girl at the top of her class, destined for big things. But behind the perfect façade of the model minority in a very white Long Island town, is a girl who is popping pills to deal with the pressure.

This book is pitched as a thriller but to me it was more of a contemporary drama dealing with a young woman who is slowly unraveling after the loss of her best friend/girlfriend Lia. I assumed this would be the story of searching for a missing girl but we already know what happened to Lia. Instead Chase is trying to retrace her steps and piece together the memories of the last few months to figure out what caused Lia's death. Was Lia secretly struggling in silence? Was it an accident? Was one of her classmates responsible for Lia's death?

This story really examined the pressure to be a a success and what success looks like. I didn't expect Chase to example her own family dynamics from her relationship with her father and his relationship with his own father. And she stops to think about her parent's broken marriage, how her mother had to dim her shine to appease her father. She's not just searching for the truth about Lia she's searching for the truth about herself. There was also some conversation about mental health that was done here in a very realistic way. A fast-paced story with many moving parts, this kept me engaged from start to finish. I listened to the audiobook and the narration was perfect for this book.