Title: I'll Meet You There
Author: Heather Demetrios
Publisher: Raincoast Canada
Publication date: February 3, 2015
Publisher: Raincoast Canada
Publication date: February 3, 2015
Genre(s): Young Adult (Contemporary)
Source: Publisher
Format: ARC
Pages: 400
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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.
I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios was a great read. I have been hearing raving reviews about it from almost everyone, which is why I actually ended up requesting it. I am a huge contemporary fan so knowing such a book has touched the hearts of many of my reader friends, I wanted to jump on that bandwagon. While I didn't fall in love with I'll Meet You There, I still loved the story Heather Demetrios told. Skylar comes from a trailer park environment. She's hated it all her life and can't wait to leave. It is currently the summer before freshman year and she's counting down the days until she leaves. She has a full scholarship at a university that is very far from her "home", which she doesn't even feel is her actual home. She then reconnects with Josh Mitchell, recently returned from Afghanistan, with one less leg as a price of the war he was through.
Josh really hated people's pity.. something only a person who went through a horrible and traumatic event can really understand.. however the people on the other side of things just don't know how to act. I liked Josh, I think he really handled his return well, but at the same time, I personally wasn't a fan of his chapters. I think seeing him from Skylar's chapters was how I really liked him. There was so much anger in his own chapters and it was really hard to read that. He has every right to be angry, every right to hate the world. I have to be honest and say that I felt so uncomfortable because it reminded me of many of the young men back home that are pretty much in the same situation. One main difference is that therapy doesn't exist and PTSD doesn't really get treated there.. I guess the transference I subconsciously did just turned it into such an uncomfortable and sometimes bitter read. Skylar however frustrated me at times because she would consider ditching her full university ride just to take care of her mother who lost her job, wasn't in a hurry to find a new one, drank herself to sleep every night, and started seeing a good for nothing guy. This might sound selfish but I just can't imagine what Skylar has been through because of her mother. Her mother checked out of her mom role years ago and ever since, Skylar was the one taking care of everything. It annoyed me that Skylar even toyed with the idea of still getting screwed over by her mother.
I liked I'll Meet You There. I just felt it was a bit too long but I did find the friendship, turned relationship, between Skylar and Josh to be very sweet and raw and slow (in a good way). Both have been hurt in this world and seeing them both try to deal with it and try to make it work was what made the book for me. One other reason is Skylar's friends. I truly loved all their scenes together and they were just such a fantastic trio! I definitely recommend I'll Meet You There to contemporary fans who want more than a typical cute romance.