Meredith & Jennifer's Musings : WHERE YOU'LL FIND ME Blog Tour, Giveaway, Review

Title: WHERE YOU'LL FIND ME
Author: Erin Fletcher
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Pages:211
Pub. Date: January 7, 2014

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes

When Hanley Helton discovers a boy living in her garage, she knows she should kick him out. But Nate is too charming to be dangerous. He just needs a place to get away, which Hanley understands. Her own escape methods—vodka, black hair dye, and pretending the past didn't happen—are more traditional, but who is she to judge?

Nate doesn't tell her why he's in her garage, and she doesn't tell him what she's running from. Soon, Hanley¹s trading her late-night escapades for all-night conversations and stolen kisses. But when Nate¹s recognized as the missing teen from the news, Hanley isn't sure which is worse: that she's harboring a fugitive, or that she's in love with one.

Jennifer's Review:

Ok, so when I first this book I was curious. A boy living in someone's garage? I mean how does that happen and who let's that happen? Is it realistic -- no, do I care -- no, not really...

I was more than surprised not only by how much I liked the story but how much depth there was to there was to the main and secondary characters.

The main characters:
Nate -- a homeless boy that lives in Hanley's garage. And yep she finds him in there one night while sneaking out of her home and continues to let him live there. He has a secret that he running from which led him to be living in Hanley's garage -- read to find out what it is! I thought Nate came off pretty sincere right from the start -- so while it was different that Hanley accepted him living in the garage with no prior interaction with him -- I thought the writer pulled it off well. It was pretty clear that he wasn't dangerous but instead a young kid going through something traumatic -- even though you don't find out Nate's secret until about 75% into the book -- I didn't sense he was a bad person.

Hanley - she has her own secret and while she is not running like Nate -- she is self medicating with alcohol and partying.

Hanley and Nate form a friendship and then a relationship that is relatable and that's all credit to the writer. I know sounds odd, because he was living in her garage...but the author made it work and it worked well. She made the reader understand why Hanley would keep Nate's secret and let him stay in the garage - they identified with each other through their grief. At the end of the day they helped each other become better people -- Nate forced Hanley to open up and form stronger relationships with the people in her life. Hanley gave Nate a place to saty and in the end closure and his life back.

Sure there was some teenage insta love (but actually it went slower than most teenage books -- and insta love is a teenage thing --sometimes we forget :-)), there was some immaturity -- but that's what being a teenage is about.

The way the story ends showed a lot of love and courage on the parts of both of the characters.

About Erin:

Erin Fletcher is a morning person who does most of her writing before sunrise while drinking excessive quantities of coffee, believes flip-flops qualify as year-round footwear, and would spend every day at the beach if she could. She has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics (which is almost never useful when writing books) and lives in North Carolina.

You can visit Erin on her website and on Twitter.