Finding What Is by Tabitha Vohn

Amazon Goodreads

This is a stand-alone book by Tabitha Vohn
Goodreads Blurb:
"Willie has always lived an unconventional life. Surrounded by the sensual, ethereal images of her artist-mother, she fantasizes about the half-wolf, half-human, but all-gorgeous face that stares out at her from her mother’s wall, and drinks in her mother’s stories of past lovers and adventures. She shares her home with a man who calls himself “uncle” (who stalks her through the house, naked). Her closest friends are a band of misfits who’ve forged their own way in life-including Xavier, who has carved his name in her soul- and her heart is torn between him and a college professor, a fellow artist who wants more than a student-teacher relationship. 

Willie stands on the brink of womanhood poised to follow in her mother’s footsteps, with a gleaming future as an artist looming before her, and a maturity beyond her years that has enabled her to be the protector and caretaker of others, a mender of wounds. But as a devastating illness rips her mother from her life, Willie is left bereft of a home and of a sense of self. Guided only by her instincts, Willie wanders from her Professor’s arms to the home that Xavier shares with his live-in girlfriend Nicole (who insists that they can “share”). Her path becomes a search for peace, for family, for a love that’s real, and for her place in this world. 

Finding What Is chronicles the journey that we all must take-to find ourselves, to reconcile our past, and to get back to that place we once called home."

Wow. I mean... just wow. I seriously loved this book. I just... I don't I know ok? *deep breath* Let's do this.

The heartache the main character has to go through throughout the course of this book is incredible. It's people like this that inspire the rest of us to keep going. The main character, Willie, is truly trying to find herself through everything that just keeps piling up on her. You'd think after a while, she'd just say screw it but she keeps going. That was truly amazing to me.

Also, just a little side note, reading this book made me want to read poetry again. I gave it up a while ago but I'm taking it back up again!

I literally could not put this book down. I read until 3am. I actually put off writing a review because really, I don't know what to say.

Now be warned haters-of-love-triangles, there is a love triangle in this book. But it isn't really the typical love triangle. There's art, passion, abuse, and sharing mixed in. It's so much more complicated than the typical "I want you to be mine not his!" and "No choose ME!!". Willie was abandoned and found again. To be truthful, the thing I loved most about this book was the cover and the title and how completely it wrapped up the entire story. I mean, have you SEEN the cover?! Amazing *wipes tear away*

So back to the point, the plot. It was fabulous. Like I already said, I couldn't put it down until it was done. And even then, I had to just sit for a minute and digest everything. It made me cry, laugh, and gasp in total shock. I was completely immersed. That's what a good book does to me. I forget about my world and I'm in the book's reality.

I highly recommend this book. 5 stars.

“I was thinking of how, when we think of loss in our life, how our sense of ‘home’ was the first thing to go. You know, we lose that place of childhood innocence, of feeling protected. And so many of us spend the rest of our lives trying to reclaim that place called home, that life made simple again.” 

“Sometimes skin to ground [is] the most comforting place; nowhere to go but up.”