Aug 24

Aug 24 Now That I’ve Found You

Audiobooks, Young Adult, Summer Reads, Fiction, Diverse Reads

Score: 4/5 Bookmarks

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for gifting me a review audiobook copy of Now That I’ve Found You by Kristina Forest.

Evie Jones is 18 and living in LA, and just breaking into acting when a drunken video gets her fired and effectively blacklisted before her career has even taken off. Humiliated, and without a good support system she heads to New York to spend time with her famous actress grandmother and try to salvage her career.

After a fight, her grandmother takes off and while Evie is running all over the city trying to find her, she ends up learning more about herself and who she wants to be. She also meets a cute boy along the way.

It was a cute story, but I thought the characters could have been developed a little more, they felt superficial to me. I would have liked to have seen their relationships to each other explored in greater depth, to provide context and credibility. Also, some aspects of the story could have been a little more subtle. I realize this is a young adult book, but young readers are smart and I felt like this book sort of hit you over the head with the moral of the story.

Being a big fan of New York I really enjoyed the setting, and Evie (and her new friend Milo) spend a lot of time exploring and looking for Evie’s grandmother, which is fun.

While I had mixed feelings about the characters throughout the book I loved, loved, loved Shayna Small’s narration, which brought my rating up from a 3.5 to a 4. She is one of my all-time favorite narrators, and you might have also heard her perform The Vanishing Half and Red at the Bone. The audio is 8 hours and 21 minutes but it felt like less to me, and was a pleasure to listen to her narrate it.

You can grab the audiobook for yourself on the button below, or get a physical copy here.

Get the Audiobook

Synopsis:

A YA novel about searching for answers, love, and your eccentric grandma in all the wrong places.

Following in the footsteps of her überfamous grandma, eighteen-year-old Evie Jones is poised to be Hollywood’s next big star. That is until a close friend’s betrayal leads to her being blacklisted . . .

Fortunately, Evie knows just the thing to save her floundering career: a public appearance with America’s most beloved actress—her grandma Gigi, aka the Evelyn Conaway. The only problem? Gigi is a recluse who’s been out of the limelight for almost twenty years. Days before Evie plans to present her grandma with an honorary award in front of Hollywood’s elite, Gigi does the unthinkable: she disappears.

With time running out and her comeback on the line, Evie reluctantly enlists the help of the last person to see Gigi before she vanished: Milo Williams, a cute musician Evie isn’t sure she can trust. As Evie and Milo conduct a wild manhunt across New York City, romance and adventure abound while Evie makes some surprising discoveries about her grandma—and herself.