There You Are

Octavian Munroe is haunted by the life and death of his older brother and Mina Rose has never quite fit in. Once lovers, now estranged, they both left their hometown of St. Louis for fresh starts in the wake of grief and heartbreak.

Octavian and Mina travel homeward in the aftermath of the tragedy in search of answers. They seek out the music that once gave their hearts a steady beat and their lives a sense of direction. But the record shop where they fell in love as teenagers is closing for good, sparking a desire for closure as well as answers.

This raw, powerful story of love and loss reckons with how fear shapes even the most fleeting collisions between friends, neighbors, and strangers.

A beautifully written book.

In her novel, There You Are, Mathea Morais, explores what it means to be a Person of Colour (POC) in the United States today. Her story of two star-crossed lovers, Octavian and Mina Rose, examines how POCs and whites view each other through the lens of both history and current affairs. Morais has an encyclopedic knowledge of American discography, and uses music as the background to her novel, which is partially set in a St. Louis record store which specializing in vinyl. 

There is so much going on in this novel that you will find yourself re-reading parts of it. If you were affected, in any way whatsoever, by the shooting of Micheal Brown by the Ferguson police you will be fascinated by this novel.

I received a free copy of this ebook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow!
I have just finished this book and I just loved it the book grabbed me from the very first sentence, but it held me all the way through. I really couldn’t put this book down, I picked it because it had a record on the cover but what I loved was how the author conveyed the love of all types of music, the passion, the energy, the affinity we can feel to those who on the surface may seem nothing like us but we can connect through a rift or a beat. 
Whilst reading “there you are” I was reminded of Roberta Flacks’s “Killing me softly” in so many ways Octavians tale was just like mine and I was reading all about pain I forgot I was even carrying. 
I would passionately recommend this to all  music lovers and all lovers. Set, I suppose, in the 1980-90s but with a backdrop of 2014 st Louis. I have just finished it but already want to pick it up again 
#netgalley #thereyouare #matheamorais

THERE YOU ARE is the best book I've read this year.  It's about music, family, addiction, race, resilience, trauma, love - it's about life!  It starts in 2014 St. Louis, just after Michael Brown has been shot and follows the lives of Mina and Octavian, who were in love as teenagers but who haven't seen each other in years.  Both Mina and Octavian spent their formative years at Rahaan's, a wonderful music store that was the center of their homemade community.  THERE YOU ARE is a beautiful book with characters who are memorable and real and a joy to get to know.  I am going to buy this for everyone I know.

A friend asked me if I could compare it to anything else and I could only come up with, "It's like if 'The Hate U Give' had a baby with 'High Fidelity'." In reality, it's not like anything else at all. 
I loved the way this book told the intertwining stories of several different characters--shows how we affect one another in glorious, special, and sometimes even heartbreaking ways. 
It's a coming of age story told from the zoomed out perspective of adulthood. It's not giving anything away to say that this is the story of two star-crossed lovers but it's no romance. It's not even a love story. That's just the fact of it. We follow these two as they live their way towards and away from one another as young-love is wont to do.