Book: This Golden State
Author: Marit Weisenberg
Pages: 372
Read on: Kindle
Read in: ~4 hours
Plot Summary: The Winslow family lives by five principles:
1. No one can know your real name.
2. Don’t stay in one place too long.
3. If you sense anything is wrong, go immediately to the meeting spot.
4. Keeping our family together is everything.
5. We wish we could tell you who we are, but we can’t. Please—do not ask.
Poppy doesn’t know why her family has been running her whole life, but she does know that there are dire consequences if they’re ever caught. Still, her curiosity grows each year, as does her desire for real friends and the chance to build on something, instead of leaving behind school projects, teams, and crushes at a moment’s notice.
When a move to California exposes a crack in her parents’ airtight planning, Poppy realizes how fragile her world is. Determined to find out the truth, she mails in a home DNA test. Just as she starts to settle into her new life and even begins opening up to a boy in her math class, the forgotten test results bring her crashing back to reality.
Unraveling the shocking truth of her parents’ real identities, Poppy realizes that the DNA test has undone decades of careful work to keep her family anonymous—and the past is dangerously close to catching up to them. Determined to protect her family but desperate for more, Poppy must ask: How much of herself does she owe her family? And is it a betrayal to find her own place in the world?
Things I Liked:
1. The premise of This Golden State is very interesting and the author does a good job of maintaining the taut pace and suspense of the plot throughout the book. A family on the move, parents behaving suspiciously, hints of a criminal past- all of which make for an interesting premise. Poppy's quest for normalcy, her worries about her future, her fears about the secret her parents are keeping from her are all very relatable.
2. This book has some great characters. Poppy, our protagonist, is smart, kind and thoughtful. She is a very bright science and math student, who wants nothing more than to go to college, study hard, get a PhD etc., however, the very unique circumstances of her family stops her from even bringing this up with her parents. She is the typical older child- very obedient and understanding. She never makes trouble for her parents and, pretty much, unquestioningly follows their guidelines.
Harry- Harrison Addison- is on the other end of the spectrum from Poppy. He is the son of tech billionaire and a politician. He also has secrets and reasons for keeping his life private. They may come from different worlds but their priorities and values are the same, which helps them bond. I really liked their relationship and how Harry helps Poppy see that she needs to stand up to have her own life and future separate from her parents.
Poppy's Math professor is also a very inspiring and supportive woman. She sees the potential in Poppy and actively encourages her to think of college and an academic future.
3. This book is a Young Adult thriller-romance but it has a lot of chapters on girls in STEM. I loved that about this book! Poppy loves math and science and she finds people in California that encourage and nurture her talents. Love seeing this kind of representation in YA books.
4. The big secret about her parents' past is also nicely shown. It is nearly not as horrible as you'd think it is given how they keep moving and how paranoid they are, but it is bad enough for them to be afraid of their family being torn apart by it. This secret past also explains a lot about the dynamic between her parents, which was also nicely done.
5. The ending is satisfying. Don't want to spoil the ending, but I really liked the decision taken by Poppy and supported by her parents.
Things I Didn't Like:
1. The 'big secret' was a little silly. It would seem like a big, scary thing to a 20-odd year old but with so much time, the parents should've realised that they'd built it up in their heads and that the actual consequences of turning themselves in wouldn't nearly be as awful, especially, if we were to believe Poppy's mom when she says what her role in all of it was. I found it a little tragic that her dad, who had nothing much to do with any of it, had to give up his whole life to go on the run. But, this is a minor gripe.
Rating: 4/5
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