March Fiction Book Club: I Hope You Find What You're Looking For

Old Town Books' Fiction Book Club is free and open to the public. While buying the book at OTB is not required to attend, we would greatly appreciate it to help keep our free literary programming sustainable! Buy your copy of I Hope You Find What You're Looking For by Bsrat Mezghebe at the shop or online and note "book club" to get 10% off.

By attending any and all Old Town Books events you are agreeing to our code of conduct.

Old Town Books is committed to creating accessible events and spaces for the widest possible audience. Please reach out to us at [email protected] for reasonable accessibility accommodations.

About the book:

The year is 1991. Eritrea is on the verge of liberation from Ethiopian rule and in Washington, D.C.’s tight-knit Eritrean community, change is in the air. Thirteen-year-old Lydia and her family are grappling with what peace after decades of war might mean for their future, just as they welcome Berekhet—a distant cousin newly arrived from Ethiopia to attend medical school in the States. With him comes a barrage of new ideas Lydia must confront for the first time, about the stories of nationhood and family she was raised on.
Meanwhile her mother, Elsa, a former rebel fighter, and the family matriarch, Mama Zewdi, must grapple with regrets long buried in the time their country has been at war. Elsa’s path from Eritrea to D.C. was paved with courage and loss, and figures from her past on the front lines of battle begin to resurface. Mama Zewdi, who runs a successful injera business out of her apartment, finds herself reexamining her place in their little family for the first time, while Lydia, emboldened by Berekhet, becomes committed to uncovering the secrets of her and her mother’s past—including the truth about her father, who was martyred in the war.
A loving ode to an immigrant community on the cusp of a new age, I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For boldly asks: How does our past define our present? And what stories must we let go of to be truly free?

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Old Town Books