Score: 4/5 Bookmarks

Thank you to Amberjack Publishing for gifting me a review copy of There You Are by Mathea Morais. I’m still processing this book after finishing it a week ago. It’s a very powerful coming of age story, dealing with loss, family, drug addiction, and racial issues.

Set mostly in St. Louis, the book follows Octavian Munroe as learns what it is to be a man, and particularly an African-American man in the 1990s. Then later, as an adult, we see the issues he still deals with, and the scars he still carries with him.

This book really moved me, and sucked me in from the first few pages. The characters are rich, flawed, and deeply real. Their relationships are at once heartbreaking and heartwarming, and I found myself desperately yearning for them to find a happy ending.

I also really enjoyed the dialogue. It can be hard to make conversations feel natural in a book, but Morais does a wonderful job at making the characters talk in a very real way that helps you to get lost in the story.

I read part of the book in physical form and the rest as an audiobook. I loved the narration by Brandon Johnson. You can grab yourself 3-for-1 audiobooks by using my code ‘LatestBookCrush’ on Libro.fm. AND you’ll be supporting your local brick-and-mortar bookstore because Libro.fm gives a portion of proceeds back to the bookstore of your choosing! Or you can grab the physical copy on the button below.

Synopsis:

Octavian Munroe is haunted by the life and death of his older brother in one of the most racially segregated cities in the country. Mina Rose has never quite fit in and wishes she was anything but white. Once lovers, now estranged, they both left St. Louis for fresh starts in the wake of grief and heartbreak.

In the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death and the awakening of the Black Lives Matter movement, Octavian and Mina travel homeward. The record shop where they fell in love as teenagers in the 1990s is closing for good, sparking a desire for closure of their own.

This raw, powerful story of love and loss reckons with how where you come from shapes even the most fleeting collisions between friends, neighbors, and strangers.