Hello, friends! Today I am super excited to be joining the Blog Tour for This Golden State by Marit Weisenberg! I loved this one, so I shall tell you all my thoughts, then you can enter to win a copy of your own!

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This Golden State by Marit Weisenberg
Published by Flatiron Books on March 1, 2022
Pages: 400
Format:ARC, eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

Marit Weisenberg’s This Golden State follows a family on the run, a restless teenage daughter hungry for the truth, and the simple DNA test that threatens their carefully crafted world

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?

It’s official, I’m going to read anything Marit Weisenberg writes. After loving 2020’s The Insomniacs, I was beyond excited to start This Golden State (and thrilled to be invited to the blog tour, naturally). And I am happy to report, it delivered, which puts the author firmly on my auto-read list.

The premise obviously hooked me from the start. I mean, not only are Poppy and her family on the run (and have been for as long as she can remember), but Poppy hasn’t the faintest idea why. Let’s stop for a second and think that through. Can you even imagine? Your whole life is lies, you know it’s lies, but you just have to keep being lied to, keep being pulled from your makeshift homes, quasi-friends, schools you finally got yourself sort-of settled in. It must have been so exhausting, so lonely for Poppy. And I think that is what makes her such a compelling character from the start. When we first meet her, she’s literally being ripped away yet again. She’s just started to feel a little at home in her new town, made some friends, has actual things to look forward to at school… then bam. She’s yanked out of town yet again.

The family finally reaches their new destination, the titular Golden State, of course, and Poppy finds herself questioning her parents more than ever. And it makes total sense! As a reader, I found myself not only cheering on Poppy’s questioning because I too wanted answers, but because I was so invested in her finally getting some answers too. Her fear and apprehension makes sense. She hasn’t a clue how the world works, is barely technologically savvy, since her parents have kept her as sheltered as possible, for the reasons you can surmise.

This is, obviously, a coming of age story for Poppy, and a story of Poppy finding out who she is- both in the very literal sense, and in the figurative journey we all take. The story is certainly beautiful in that regard, as Poppy navigates growing up and figuring out who is she, both in the context of her family, and outside of them. But when you add in the other incredibly thought provoking bits, it becomes even more compelling. You can’t help but question the morality of Poppy’s parents, what the best choices for Poppy are, if there even are any good choices in the circumstances Poppy finds herself in. Plus, the mystery that Poppy begins to unfurl made me pretty much unable to stop turning the pages.

Bottom Line: Incredibly readable, with a very sympathetic and likable main character, I was obsessed with this book from the start.

Because I will be buying myself a nice shiny finished copy, I am giving away my ARC of This Golden State by Marit Weisenberg, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Okay real talk: Would you completely blow your family’s cover within 5 minutes? I know I would. I’d go by one of my past names or something, and that would be the end of that!