Book Review | I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

Format: Hardback
Source: Purchased
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: February 3, 2015
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

If seventeen-year-old Skylar Evans were a typical Creek View girl, her future would involve a double-wide trailer, a baby on her hip, and the graveyard shift at Taco Bell. But after graduation, the only thing standing between straightedge Skylar and art school are three minimum-wage months of summer. Skylar can taste the freedom—that is, until her mother loses her job and everything starts coming apart. Torn between her dreams and the people she loves, Skylar realizes everything she’s ever worked for is on the line.

Nineteen-year-old Josh Mitchell had a different ticket out of Creek View: the Marines. But after his leg is blown off in Afghanistan, he returns home, a shell of the cocksure boy he used to be. What brings Skylar and Josh together is working at the Paradise—a quirky motel off California’s dusty Highway 99. Despite their differences, their shared isolation turns into an unexpected friendship and soon, something deeper.

My Thoughts:

 

I don't even know where to begin, I always find it so hard to review the books that I absolutely loved, and this one is no exception.  I'm not sure how well I will be able to convey my love for this book in my review, but I will try. 

This is the first book that I've read by Heather Demetrios, but I can guarantee that it won't be my last.  This book completely hooked me from the very beginning and it didn't let up once until the very last page.  Even then, I found myself going back and thinking about this story.  The writing is so amazing and everything feels so real.  Sure, the characters aren't perfect, but who is?  And they don't have the perfect lives, but who does?  No one, and that is one reason that made me love them so much.  They are flawed, and they make mistakes, but we all do.  The point of making mistakes are learning from them and I feel like they do, that made them feel more real and relatable.

I absolutely loved the characters in this story.  Skylar was so easy to like, she's loyal, smart, creative and she knows exactly who she is, and she doesn't let anyone pressure her to be something she's not.  Sure, she has flaws, but she's smart enough to not make the same mistakes twice.  Josh, oh what can I say about Josh?  He is a character that really has a lot going on, he just got back from Afghanistan, minus a leg, and he has a hell of a lot of baggage, but he makes it so easy to love him.   I also loved the side characters as well, Dylan, Chris and Marge, they all were special in their own way and I feel like they were all there for Sky when she needed them, and that is hard to find now days.

I'll Meet You There is a wonderful story about finding yourself, learning from your mistakes, and realizing that sometimes your family doesn't have to be related to you.  With that said, it's also a heartbreaking story and there are some dark moments when Josh narrates, but his is a story that needs to be told.  What he goes through is a harsh reality of what it's like for soldiers and I applaud Demetrios for taking on such a tough subject, and for doing it with such compassion.  Josh's story is one that will stay with me for a long time.