Book Review: Find Layla by Meg Elison

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Synopsis:

A neglected girl’s chaotic coming-of-age becomes a trending new hashtag in a novel about growing up and getting away by an award-winning author.

Underprivileged and keenly self-aware, SoCal fourteen-year-old Layla Bailey isn’t used to being noticed. Except by mean girls who tweet about her ragged appearance. All she wants to do is indulge in her love of science, protect her vulnerable younger brother, and steer clear of her unstable mother.

Then a school competition calls for a biome. Layla chooses her own home, a hostile ecosystem of indoor fungi and secret shame. With a borrowed video camera, she captures it all. The mushrooms growing in her brother’s dresser. The black mold blooming up the apartment walls. The unmentionable things living in the dead fridge. All the inevitable exotic toxins that are Layla’s life. Then the video goes viral.

When Child Protective Services comes to call, Layla loses her family and her home. Defiant, she must face her bullies and friends alike, on her own. Unafraid at last of being seen, Layla accepts the mortifying reality of visibility. Now she has to figure out how to stay whole and stand behind the truth she has shown the world.

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 My Review:

TW: abuse, child neglect, absent parent, poverty, bullying, cyber-bulling.

Find Layla draws you in from the first chapter. She’s a remarkable girl growing up with an absentee mother, in a less than savoury environment while trying to take care of her little brother, Andy.

Layla is incredibly self-aware as a character, neglected by her mother, and tormented at school by the ‘mean girls’, she has a deep love for science and maintains a good GPA. Then comes the science project, where they observe a biome, and Layla lifts the lid on her home life, and films the house she lives in. With the black mould, and mushrooms in the dresser.

The writing in this novel was impressive; Elison wrote well from the teenage perspective and I was fully engrossed in the story. The detail of the home that she was living in was vivid and evocative. The character of the mother is interesting, we are reading about her from Layla’s perspective, so we only see what Layla sees, but the limited interaction between Layla and her mother paints a powerful picture.

This novel showed a realistic picture of what it’s like for Layla to live in that environment. The story is immersive and emotional, it is difficult to read about the hardships she’s going through at such a young age. It explores poverty and neglect, yet also shows how resilient Layla is as a character.

This is not a cute fluffy book to read, it is a harsh reality of what this young girl is experiencing. It is honest, human and heart-breaking but I would highly recommend it.

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