Iphigenia Murphy || Blog Tour

As always, I am super thankful to the FFBC and all who were involved in allowing me to read an ARC of this book and to be a part of the tour. Please click the banner above to see the other stops!

In other news, today my wife and I have been together for four years. We have been through so much together that it feels so much longer but also like I could never get enough time with her. I just had to mention it!

Warning there may be spoilers ahead!!

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Author: Sara Hosey

Pub. Date: March 10th 2020

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Genre: YA

Pages: 272 pages

Sara Hosey holds a PhD in American literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is an associate professor of English and women and gender studies at Nassau Community College. Her book, Home Is Where the Hurt Is: Media Depictions of Wives and Mothers (McFarland, 2019), looks at representations of the domestic in popular culture. Sara grew up in Queens and now lives in Sea Cliff, New York, with her partner and their children. She is working on a second novel.

Website | Goodreads | Twitter

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Running away from home hasn’t solved Iphigenia Murphy’s problems. In fact, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll catch up with her. Iffy is desperate to find her long-lost mother, and, so far, in spite of the need to forage for food and shelter and fend off an unending number of creeps, living in Queens’ Forest Park has felt safer than living at home. But as the summer days get shorter, it all threatens to fall apart.
A novel that explores the sustaining love of friendship, the kindness of strangers, and the indelible bond of family, Iphigenia Murphy captures the gritty side of 1992 Queens, the most diverse borough in New York City. Just like Iffy, the friends she makes in the park–Angel, a stray dog with the most ridiculous tail; Corinne, a young trans woman who is escaping her own abusive situation; and Anthony, a former foster kid from upstate whose parents are addicts–each seek a place where they feel at home. Whether fate or coincidence has brought them together, within this community of misfits Iffy can finally be herself, but she still has to face the effects of abandonment and abuse–and the possibility that she may be pregnant. During what turns out to be a remarkable journey to find her mother, will Iffy ultimately discover herself?

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It took me a little bit to get into this book but once I did, I was flying through it. I personally have never had to live in a park so I’m not sure how accurate everything is in just moving around but it sometimes felt like it was “too easy” for Iffy. Still, I loved how this book focused on loyalty and found family as well as showing how sometimes abusers can draw their victims back in.

Of course with a book like this, there were parts that were emotionally hard to read but in a good way if that makes any sense. There was never a time with this book that I was bored or wanted to stop reading.

As for the main romantic pairing in the book, I wasn’t against Anthony and Iffy but they also weren’t OTP level of shipping. I was fine with them staying together or breaking up.