Date: August 24, 2025
Author: Megan Miranda
Title: You Belong Here
This story flipped back and forth between the now and the before of mother, Beckett’s, days of growing up under the parentage of 2 professor parents. They both worked for the same University and when Beckett was old enough their positions opened the door for her own attendance at this posh university. She was even named after one of the buildings on the quad. Her parent’s version of sentimentalizing her conception?
Present day Beckett is blindsided when her own daughter announces that she, too, has been accepted into this same University. Beckett’s Alma Mater, and she is not pleased.
In the Before, after Beckett’s best friend takes off, hitting the road with a new identity, she was left behind trying to explain her own part in a deadly fire that killed 2 men. Men that the two friends had recently been known to have had an altercation with. That same night, after the women left the bar and the men had a chance to calm down they were finally ready to leave the scene and what should they find? Their vehicle had been vandalized!
Apparently, Beckett’s best friend had keyed a word into the paint job that the men didn’t appreciate so much. Especially after the heated debate about a dart game that seemed to have started this whole mess. Which brings us to the men being on their way to confront the two girls.
The girls were given a heads up that the men were on their way to find them and they were none-too-pleased. They ended up leading the men down a road that led deep into a woods in a cat and mouse chase that, in the end, lead to the end of the men.
*spoiler alert
I had an issue with the ending. If Beckett had been identified by an unknown witness at the time of the murders, (in the before timeline), why did the unknown witness not tell the cops what she had seen at the time the murders happened? Why would she wait 20 years to seek her vengeance. Waiting until the daughter showed up in town? It doesn’t ring true and was too much of a reach for me.
Mz. Miranda is a wonderful writer, I think she just needed a better ending. But with a different, more accurate ending, Beckett would have served her time for the murders in a timely fashion and would therefore never have met her kid’s dad.
Update: After having sat on this story for some time, in retrospect, it was worth a read, so I’ll award it on the low end of 4 stars.
Have a fabulous day!
