The protagonists are Skye Albright and Zane O’Rourke, two kids in Seattle who bond over their outsider status and their love of music and its ability to express their alienation as well as their dreams. When they meet in 1987, Skye is 12 and Zane, who lives across the street, is 14. The novel goes back and forth in time, ending up when they are both almost 30.

When Skye was 17, her older sister Lauren died in an accident. After the funeral, Skye became pregnant and left home. She told her parents in a note she needed to figure out who she was “without Lauren or my parents, or anyone.” She didn’t call home until she was seven months pregnant, only telling them about the baby then. It was also the last time she spoke to her father.

In 2002, Skye is living in Albuquerque. Her daughter Montana is nine and she is engaged to a caring Native American man from the Sandia Pueblo named Aaron. All is going well until she gets a call from Zane, the first time she has heard from him in six years. Then her mother calls as well, to tell Skye that her father died, and she knows that is why Zane called; he was hoping to see her and Montana at the funeral.

Aaron immediately gets that Skye has unfinished business with Zane - unfinished feelings about him, as well as unspoken truths that need to be uncovered.

Skye has to figure out who she is in love with, and whether the wounds of the past can be healed if she is to move forward with her life.

Evaluation: I had a hard time liking this book because I couldn’t stand either Skye or Zane. They seemed like realistic characters though, sad to say. I think they found more satisfaction at the end than I did as a reader.

Unfortunately, the ARC was a pdf document which meant the font was too small for me to read on my e-reader. I have been unable to read and therefore review it.

This beautifully written novel takes place in several locations during the years 1987-2002. It's about two teenagers who are basically outcasts at school becoming best friends and ultimately parents. They plan to move from Seattle to LA so that Zane can get discovered as a musician while Skye works on her art. They are best friends until Skye's sister dies in an accident and they make love on the evening of her funeral and Skye becomes pregnant. Life becomes uncomfortable at home when her parents find out about the pregnancy. They are still grieving their daughter's death and don't want Skye burdened with a child at her young age. Skye decides that she's had enough and runs away to Montana. Zane follows her but by then he's too hooked on drugs to be any help to her or to himself. After he leaves, Skye moves to New Mexico with her infant named Montana. She meets Aaron and his mother and they make Skye and Montana part of their family and eventually Aaron and Skye fall in love. When Zane re-enters her life after 10 years, his goal is to be a real father to Montana and both Zane and Aaron want her to make a choice between them. Skye is still in love with Zane - or maybe she's really in love with the person she wants him to be. She has to make a decision to go back to her past and try to make a life with Zane or move forward into the future with Aaron.

This is a fantastic book - Skye and Zone are real written and very believable as characters, the references to the Seattle grunge scene are right on and the ending of the book is absolutely perfect. This novel is about family and love, acceptance and forgiveness and asks the question of how much parents need to alter their lives for the good of their children.

Thanks to netgalley for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, characters were well written and whilst not always likeable they showed human frailty and really demonstrated that mostly people are just trying to do the best they can

Jennifer Haupt, in her prior novel, In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, effortlessly blended the American Civil Rights Movement with the 1994 Rwandian genocide. In her newest novel, Come as You Are, she just as easily dovetails the West Coast “Seattle Grunge” music scene with the New Mexican Native American milieu. Zane and Skye are teenaged best friends/lovers who plan to move to LA, Zane planning to hit it big in music while Skye works on her art. Things go screwy when her sister, Lauren, dies and, shortly thereafter, Skye discovers she’s pregnant. To escape the tensions at home, she bails out and heads to Montana. He soon follows her but becomes too messed up by drugs to be a good partner for Skye or father to their daughter, the eponymously-named Montana. Eventually, Skye moves to New Mexico. She is too damaged by her past to recognize the potential of the second family she forms with Aaron and his mother, Enola.

Come as You Are is a haunting novel about trauma, love, healing, forming new connections and new families while learning to deal with the old. It’s also about how traumas spiral around, revisiting families in new ways. The music references are spot-on. The emotions portrayed are grim, haunting, and ultimately uplifting.

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4.5/5

An engaging family drama that bounces between the present (2002) and the teenage years of two best friend misfits from the Seattle grunge scene who managed to inadvertently make a baby. Zane and Skye are such well-drawn characters that I can’t sum them up with one-line quirk descriptors — suffice it to say that while they are appealing as characters, their depth exposes the intentions, confusions, mistakes, and self-doubts that all real humans experience. Definitely character driven, the plot nevertheless keeps up and holds together through episodes of grief, indecision, love, and growing self awareness.