Finding Zach

I might have been a little too excited when I started reading this novel, so it didn't work as expected for me. Overall I enjoyed the story, but there are some things that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Before I go into what didn't resonate with me, I liked the writing style so much. Except for the 1st person bits. I see what the intended purpose was there, but it took something away as far as Zach is concerned. Reading those parts I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed and like Zach's struggle wasn't as real, which is the total opposite of what I suppose the intention was. Other than that, I liked the multiple perspective, it makes me wonder why that's not a thing in other novels as well.

For the most part Zach and David were great, they had some issues, which is to be expected from Zach, but I feel like David should have known better. He wasn't really helpful and the "What are you talking about?" (from both of them) line got old so fast. They kept talking, but made very slow progress. And, again, while it is understandable coming from Zach, David has no excuse.

It was also weird how sometimes the dialogue turned into monologue Example: when David mentioned how killing Esteban would have changed Zach, I don't even know what he was on about. I'm not sure what prompted him to talk about it and half of what he said made no sense to me. Or weird timing for full length conversations. Example: who talks to their son about the son's potential boyfriend while said potential boyfriend is half-asleep next to the son? The dialogue often felt unrealistic to me.

I didn't feel like Zach and David really fit together. Everything indicated to that, but something was missing. It's like they had a big "what if" above them and were trying to compensate. What if Zach wouldn't have gone missing? What if David wouldn't have rejected Zach when he kissed him?

At first I though Zach's parents weren't okay with the fact that Zach is gay, but that wasn't the case. They were also very supportive all the time, which, again, doesn't feel too realistic to me. Sure, Richard lost his temper once, but other than that all good.

Despite all that, I still enjoyed this novel. It lacks some things, but it is also really good on others. The writing style is a big plus and I liked that Zach's progress (or some of it) was shown.