Title: Come As You Are
Author: Jennifer Haupt
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5
Zane and Skye are two misfit teens drawn together by their love of music and their loneliness, both part of Seattle’s grunge scene in the early ‘90s. They dream of moving to L.A. together: Zane’s music career following the trajectory of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder, and Skye drawing Picasso-esque portraits on the Venice Beach boardwalk. When a tragedy violently catapults them from best friends to lovers, their bond is forever strengthened and their relationship destroyed. Ten years later, they must come together as parents, putting aside abandoned dreams and broken promises. The question is: can they face the truth of who they are, and become the parents their daughter needs them to be?
This was not an easy read. The things Zane and Skye went through—alone and separately—weren’t easy to read about. That makes this book a bit dark, but hope is threaded through the darkness as well. I loved how the scenes from the past amplify and shade the scenes set in the present, as the two come to know the truth about their past and who they are now. This was very moving book about two broken people trying to fit their pieces back together and move forward whole.
Jennifer Haupt lives in Seattle. Come As You Are is her newest novel.
(Galley courtesy of Central Avenue Publishing in exchange for an honest review.)
Tomorrow Is Another Day 