My rating: 4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Melissa Fletcher, who had bigger dreams when she was younger but is perfectly content at 35 years old to work as a partner in her father’s finance firm and not do much traveling. Her fear of flying has pretty much cancelled out most of the places she’d like to visit at this point, and while someday she’d like to overcome her fears, there is no reason that day needs to be TO-day. After finding out her father has Alzheimer’s though leads Missy’s life into somewhat of a downward spiral. Though she loves caring for her father and being close to him, her father’s illness has changed who he was and the energetic, carefree, optimistic father she once knew has a tendency to be a little to harsh and lashes out at her due to his lack of independence (not her fault but sometimes you lash out at the ones closest to you simply because they’re readily available.
After Missy’s father passes, she finally ends up going on a journey. And after a couple twists of fate she ends up in India and becomes one of the founding organizers of a school for under privileged girls. And so leads the uphill path that Melissa travels on to find out who she is as a person. Along the way she helps a young girl find herself as well, a girl that Melissa relates to extremely well since she is currently going through the hell that Melissa went through in middle school. I have to be honest in that my favorite part of this book was seeing Melissa’s character grow as a person. Melissa starts out in the book not having any idea who she is as a person standing on her own. The only things she feels define her are her involvement in her father’s firm and her certificates and degrees. But through the book we find out there is so much more to Melissa as a person and it was truly fantastic to see her grow in confidence and in self-love/assurance over the course of the story.
Overall I really liked this book. The topic matter was interesting and I was kept engaged throughout the story. The story was well-paced and the characters were interesting and came alive for me. This book really gripped my emotional heart strings and tugged, hard. I got so wrapped up in the characters and the story and just the overwhelming joy of not only finding out who you are as a person and also loving yourself that the story just came alive for me. I think this is a great book and everyone should definitely consider reading it!

The bottom line: I would definitely recommend this book, it was an emotionally gripping and uplifting read. I absolutely loved it!

Link to author website

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