I WILL FIND YOU AGAIN

Chase Ohara, a 17-year-old overachiever, grapples with her ex-girlfriend’s death while battling addiction.

“Meet me in Montauk.” That was the last text Lia Vestiano sent Chase. It was the SOS signal they used whenever they needed to escape Meadowlark, the Long Island town they called home. The two girls shared outsider status in their predominantly White community: Chase is Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Taiwanese, while adopted Lia described herself as “ethnically Korean, culturally Italian.” But now Lia is gone. The novel flashes back as Chase tries to piece together the facts: Did their breakup tear Lia apart? Did parental pressure push her over the edge? Was it an accident, or did she die by suicide? Chase teams up with Hunter van Leeuwen, Lia’s new White girlfriend, for answers. An unreliable narrator, Chase’s dependence on fictional drug Focentra—like Adderall, but stronger—distorts her grasp of reality. Overcome by guilt over their breakup and jealousy of Hunter, she tries to make sense of what happened. Muddling through college admissions, Chase wrestles with the mental strain of relentlessly seeking money, power, and status in her affluent community where students stoop to underhanded means of ensuring success. Unable to make space for grief, Chase emotionally unravels. Though this mind-bending novel features skillful character development, the tone shift from tragic romance to school cheating ring scandal is jarring, undermining the cohesiveness of the whole.

An impassioned and bold psychological drama that loses focus.