Blog Tour: Finding You by Lydia Albano (Review!)

Finding You 
Lydia Albano
Published by: Swoon Reads
Publication date: September 19th 2017
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

Taken from home and family, all they have is each other.

Isla is kidnapped from a train platform in broad daylight, and thrust into a nightmare when she is sold to a sadistic aristocrat. Locked in a dungeon with a dozen other girls, Isla’s only comfort is a locket and the memory of the boy she loves. But as days pass and more girls disappear, she realizes that help is not coming… If they’re going to survive, they’ll have to escape on their own.

Swoon Reads is proud to present Lydia Albano’s debut novel, a powerful story of a teen girl finding strength and hope in even the worst circumstances.

Review: 

I've been dying to read Lydia Albano's Finding You ever since I first heard about it. The premise sounded fascinating, and the cover is stunning. 

The result? Finding You is an incredibly strong debut. 

Daring, adventurous, poignant, Finding You is the story of one girl's fight to free herself and others from one nefarious man's strong grasp. 

Trust me when I say it's incredibly easy to get caught up in Isla's journey. You feel her pain - her utter & complete despair - but you also feel her hope and strength - the want no the NEED to be the one who saves not only herself but every single girl who's been put into the same predicament. 

"He's the boy who breaks the rules, the boy who stands up for the weak, the boy won wouldn't see me and attacked and not find a way to save me. He's the boy who kissed me, the boy who loves me, I hope. He'll find me. He'll save me." ARC, location 474 

Finding You begins just as Isla's heart is breaking. Tam, her best friend, her confidant, the boy she loves more than she can possibly express out loud, is leaving for the army. Isla doesn't know how she'll possibly survive without him, especially now that he's kissed her and ran. Did the kiss mean something? Or was it a simple goodbye between two good friends? Isla needs to know, which is how she ends on the train platform that fateful afternoon. Isla hopes she can catch his eye one last time, to get a better feeling of his thoughts and to wave goodbye. Isla, however, experiences something she couldn't have possible anticipated: she's kidnapped out the crowd and thrown into a train car to be sold with a handful of other young women. Isla is scared and shocked. How has this happened to her? How is she possibly going to survive, let alone escape? Her only solace is the hope that Tam saw her, that he will find her and save her...but as the days stretch on and the conditions become more treacherous, Isla begins to see that her only hope may be the strength and power inside she holds within. 

Isla is a character I couldn't help but to love from the start. When we're first introduced to her, she's shy, studious, and quiet, the sort of girl who lives vicariously through other's tales of daring adventure. She's content with ordinary life, however, especially knowing that she'll always have her father and best friend by her side. So when she's becomes the possession of a aristocrat, she's sad rather than angry, placing hope in other's help rather than in her own hands. However, over the course of the book, we see this amazing change occur...she goes from being the girl who blends into the background to being the girl who completely stands out. She becomes fearless, conniving, and strong. She becomes a girl who goes on adventures rather than reads about them, a girl who doesn't need to rely on a man or really anyone - she goes out and risks her own live to save others.  I loved this transition - I loved kick a$$ Isla, the girl who takes names and knocks down doors. She was an inspiration. 

"Bravery, selflessness, cunning, I may not be quite as brave as Tam, or as kind as Valentina, or as clever as Des. But I have hope flooding my veins, and love pumping my heart with promise and strength. So if I am to be a heroine, to save the lives of these girls around me, perhaps I can bear what has happened." - ARC, location 1359 

The premise and its execution was part of Finding You that I enjoyed. While Finding You is told in fictional town and empire, its story - what happens to these young girls - is something that is incredibly prevalent in today's society. I admired Lydia for taking on such a hard hitting topic, and giving these girls voices, showing that no matter the circumstance, they still have the power and ability to be brave and powerful. I thought Lydia did a great job of making these story realistic based on what happened to the girls, and while some parts of me was surprised at the type of ending we were given (it fit together almost too nicely), I still had to remember that no matter what ending they were given, these girls would carry on emotional and physical scars for the rest of their lives, and that quite simply, broke my heart into a million little pieces.  

If you love gritty, hard-hitting books with a flair of fantasy, Finding You is the book for you. I simply can't wait to see what Lydia Albano comes up with next. 

Grade: A- 

Finding You is now out! 

Source: eARC provided by publisher for blog tour 

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Author Bio:

Lydia Albano is a (self-proclaimed) Bunburyist living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she promotes Oxford commas, spends her money on musical theater, and demands the Myers-Briggs letters of everyone she meets. Her debut novel, Finding You, will be released in September, 2017, with SwoonReads/Macmillan.

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