The Search for Us - Susan Azim Boyer - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Susan Azim Boyer

GENRE: YA Family Drama

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: I am pleasantly surprised! Enjoyed this YA novel to a great extent. (Just for context, I don’t enjoy YA to any extent, most of the times.) Interesting themes, some good characters, atypical plot. PSA: This is NOT a romance but a sibling story.

Story Synopsis:

Samira Murphy knows that she is an overfunctioner. She takes care of her widowed grandma and also ensures that her alcoholic elder brother stays put in recovery. However, when certain incidents threaten to topple their already precarious financial situation, she takes a DNA test in a bid to locate her father, whom she hasn’t seen or heard from since she was a baby.

Henry Owen has been reared by his aunt and uncle, though his biological mom (his aunt’s sister) is also a vital part of his life. He feels torn between his overly strict adoptive parents and his unreliable birth mom. In a bid to know more about his heritage, he takes a DNA test to search for the biological father he has never known.

Imagine their surprise when, instead of finding their father, Samira and Henry find each other – as matched siblings on the DNA results. Thus begins a new journey of discovery, focussed of learning more about the past as well as the present in a bid to ensure stronger future connections.

The story comes to us in the alternate third-person perspectives of Samira and Henry.

Bookish Yays:

💐 It was refreshing to see a YA novel focus on sibling relationships. Moreover, there is no forced romantic content in the story. Henry is already in a relationship and Samira isn’t provided any love interest. Loved this choice!

💐 The dual perspectives of Samira and Henry are well written. I like how there is no repetition between their points of view. The transition between their perspectives is in sync with the plot progression.

💐 I loved Henry’s character. While he is torn across his three parents, he does his best to keep them all happy. At the same time, he doesn’t shy away from speaking his mind. Even when his newly discovered sibling Samira gets overbearing, he doesn’t hesitate to put her in her place.

💐 Tara (Samira’s best friend) and Linh (Henry’s girlfriend) add the right level of support and fun to the story.

💐 Through the characters, we get multiple kinds of representations. Samira and Henry both are biracial. The key characters are from American, Iranian/Persian, Vietnamese, Irish and Black ethnicities. One character is bisexual, one is a trans-racial adoptee. There is also a Muslim character.

💐 I enjoyed the detailing in the story when it came to real-world matters. Everything seems realistic, whether it is the process of getting DNA results or of looking up someone online.

💐 Don’t miss out on the author’s note! I loved what she revealed about her inspiration for this story.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🌹 I found it tough to connect with Samira. She is a great character, no doubt. Resourceful, concerned about her family, and hyper-attentive to detail. However, she has the typical YA habit of assuming that she knows more than everyone else, which gets annoying after a while.

🌹 Samira has a tendency to classify everyone as either an overfunctioner or an underfunctioner. This habit of hers is overused in the plot as she slots everyone into these two categories without even realising it. Sometimes, she even goes wrong while doing so. So while I liked the concept at first, I think it was stretched too far.

🌹 There are many discussion-worthy topics in the book: biracial kids, depression, autoimmune disorder, alcoholism, uninterested parents, parental pressure, Islamophobia, parental abuse, parental abandonment, infidelity, racism, drugs usage, DNA testing, found family,… As you can see, it went a little overboard on the social issues. Many of the themes could have safely been eliminated without affecting the core plot. The overuse of relevant themes nullifies their impact as the discussion stays mostly surface-level.

🌹 I love the cover. The double helix between the two characters hopefully indicates that it’s a sibling story. (Then again, The Soulmate Equation also featured a double helix, and it was a romance! 👀) I love the title as well; it suits the story perfectly. The problem is that when you put that title and that cover together, it makes the book look like a YA Romance, which is most certainly isn’t. Readers who pick the book up just by the cover might end up disappointed. And other readers might dismiss the book assuming it is a YA Romance. (I almost did!)

🌹 The ending is too neat and too perfect. I understand that it's a YA work, so a happy ending is almost mandatory. But given the topics, I think the book would have done better with a hopeful ending than a perfectly resolved one.

Bookish Nays: (This is where I forget that it was a YA novel and review it with my adult goggles on. 😎)

🌵 As always, almost every adult in the book is an idiot. The sole exception is Mr. Hartford from the alcoholic rehabilitation centre, but his role is too small. I don’t understand why YA novels have to portray adults as selfish persons with no common sense and no heart and no awareness of what it means to be young. I am not saying all adults are prefect; I am saying that a balanced representation would be more realistic. Any YA book that shows only YAs handling things well while the adults are jerks is doing a disservice to both YAs and adults.

🌵 Samira is supposed to have an autoimmune disorder. But the name of this is never mentioned. All we hear instead is the effects of the same, and how she uses Benadryl to counter its effects and to sleep well. I cannot appreciate a YA books that gives its young readers a new idea of misusing a medicine; it's irresponsible. The Benadryl references (15 prominent mentions) should have been culled.

🌵 There are multiple cuss words (including the F word) and references to drug (weed) usage. YAs might do this in reality, but that doesn’t mean I have to like seeing it in fiction meant for them. Of course, there’s plenty of alcohol mentioned as well, but as the two characters are highlighted as alcohol addicts, this reference can’t be helped.

All in all, I did enjoy this book much more than I had expected. I loved the focus on family, even if the family was so dysfunctional. Though it does have problems (most of which are because I am an adult reading YA), the core storyline is wonderful.

Recommended to older YAs (16+) who are interested in strong sibling connection stories.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Search for Us”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.