Review: Now That I've Found You by Kristina Forest

Release Date: August 25th, 2020

Genre(s): Young adult fiction, contemporary

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Pages: 336 pages

Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Note: I received a finished copy of this book via a BookishFirst giveaway. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis

Evie Jones, living in her grandmother’s footsteps, is going to be Hollywood’s next big star. That is, until she ends up blacklisted. Evie Jones has a plan – a public appearance with her grandmother, Gigi, will save her status. But days before the plan comes to fruition, Gigi disappears. Milo, the last person who Evie thinks will help, joins her mission to help find Gigi. And in that process, Evie learns a lot about Gigi – and herself.

Review

Lately, I haven’t been reading as many YA contemporaries as I normally would. I suppose you could say I’ve been gravitating to (and enjoying) other genres lately. But Now That I’ve Found You has definitely been an exception. I’m also really not a big fan of contemporary romances, but I really like the way this one panned out.

I read a sample of this book before winning the giveaway, and the first couple of chapters gripped me immediately. Evie’s situation starts up pretty quickly, and from there the story keeps moving, along with the chaos that ensues throughout.

However, there were some points in the middle where the pacing slowed for me. A big part of this story is about Evie’s personal growth, but at the same time, there was a point where I no longer really felt for her situation. When Gigi goes missing, so much of her focus is on the fact that she won’t be able to help her on the night of the ceremony, rather than the fact that she’s, well…missing? I can see her thought process on the first day she’s missing, but as the days pass, I feel like her worry continues to be so much about the ceremony rather than where she’s gone or if she’s okay. Some of her actions towards Milo were frustrating as well, given how kind he was. But after some time, Evie grows to become a great character.

Milo, on the other hand, made this book for me. He’s an amazing character and I’d love a companion novel about him. And while I did struggle with Evie’s character at times, I really loved scenes with them together and how they worked through the various situations they were put in.

I also really liked the exploration of Gigi’s career through the lens of Evie. I wasn’t sure if we’d hear much about Gigi’s career when I picked this book up, but I’m glad we did. Her film career taught us so much about her as a character and it brought so many more interesting layers to the story and the conflict as a whole.

And lastly, I really liked the ending for this. Part of the reason why I don’t enjoy contemporary romances is because I feel like they tend to be predictable from the start. Or perhaps it’s that I’m not a romantic. Regardless, I really liked the way that the central plot tied into the ending and how unique it was to the story.

Now That I’ve Found You was a contemporary that I really enjoyed! Although I struggled with Evie’s character at certain points in the book, I thought this was a fun story overall. I’ll definitely need to check out some other contemporaries as well since it’s been a while (including Forest’s debut!). But that being said, if you’re not big on contemporaries and you’re curious about this one, I think you’d still enjoy reading it.