Book Review: There You'll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones

I know I say this every time I finish a Jenny B. Jones book, but it's just true: She out did herself again. 

There You'll Find Me might just be Jenny's best work yet.

In this spinoff of Save the Date, Finley Sinclair [She's the teenage, rebellious, problematic sister of Save the Date's main guy, Alex.] stars, in the beautiful country of Ireland. Except for she's totally done with "rebellious" and "problematic" and showing up in the front cover tabloids of People. She just wants to find peace in Ireland. Peace she hasn't had since her brother, Will, died building schools in Afghanistan. Will did the same exchange program when he was 18, so Finley is determined to visit every place he wrote about in his travel journal. Once she finds her peace, hope, closure, she'll be able to finish her composition [A tribute to Will] and finally nail that audition for the music program at NYU. So that's exactly why she totally ignores it when she gets on the plane to Ireland and sits beside Hollywood's party-boy and vampire Beckett Rush [He's kinda like Robert Pattinson. But better]. She wants noting to do with him. But, as usual, God has other plans.

You can kinda see where this is going. It's not even a spoiler for me to tell you that Finley and Beckett end up staying under the same roof when they get to Ireland. Because her host family just happened to own a B & B that Beckett Rush was interested in. And Beckett ends up being Finely's "tour guide", in exchange for her being his assistant on his set of Fangs in the Night. And they end up being close. But the Finley-Beckett story is just the tip of the iceberg in this book.

You might remember from Save the Date, how much trouble Finely was. She had a rough year after she lost her brother, Will. But now she's determined to finally find some way to let go, while still holding on to Will's memory. She's practically memorized his travel journal, and is determined to visit every place he captured in photo and glued into the journal. Then write her composition based on each place. Except there's one problem. She can't write her ending. Because the last picture that Will glued into his journal is a gravestone, a cross. And there's thousands. And thousands. And thousands of crosses just like it in Ireland, and this was the ONE picture Will didn't write about. Nothing. And Finley just can't write the ending to her song without standing in front of that specific cross. 

"I have to find that cross in the picture. Everything's wrong without it." [Finley]

"Fin, you know when we find it . . . your bother's not going to be there." [Beckett]

I closed my eyes against the pain. "I know."

"And he's not going to meet you in New York City. Whether you nail your audition or not, Will's not coming back." {There You'll Find Me, page 195, all rights to Jenny B. Jones.}

That's all you're getting. I'm not telling you if she finds it. ;)

Finely is also convinced that God is taking an "extended Finley break". She prays and prays and can't hear him. She can't hear his will. Those closest to her tell her she's just not listening. Isn't this just something that we all struggle with? "God, why aren't you speaking to me?!" But maybe we're just not listening.

There is honestly so much more to this book. This blog post is already getting kinda long, and I've barely scratched the surface. If you're a teen girl and you only read one book this year, make it There You'll Find Me. Seriously. People say that all the time, but I mean it. It was just that good. It's an encouraging, wow-I-really-related-to-that-book, even if you're not dealing with loss or Hollywood stars right now. It's... legit-ly amazing. Be prepared to laugh, cry and get closer to God.

And I guess I'll tell you, our favourite gal from Save the Date does make a brief text message appearance. ;)

No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us. Romans 8:37