BOOK REVIEW: I'll Meet You There By Heather Demetrios

This is a book review for I'll Meet You There By Heather Demetrios. 

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.

This book deserves all the hype it has been getting and so much more. If you only read one contemporary book this year, I think it should be this one. This book was emotionally draining in the best possible way. I am in love with this author now. She was so good at describing the intricacies of a small town, everything from the sights and smells to the gossiping and drinking. There was one part of the book where I could swear I smelled the cigarette smoke in Skylar's home. 

And the characters were so perfectly developed. Everyone was flawed, which made them easier to relate to. I could relate to Skylar so much, the way she had to grow up way too fast, the way she had to take care of her mother, the way she just wanted to get out of the small town she thought of as more of a prison. When she meets Josh, a man who just got back from a tour with the Marines in which he lost his leg, an instant friendship forms. These are two people who are hurt and broken. I really liked that the author took the time to build a friendship and a bond between these two characters. It wasn't love at first sight, which is good because a character like Skylar would have resisted that anyway. I loved that Skylar didn't treat Josh as someone who needed to be coddled. She joked about his leg, stood up for herself when he was acting like a jerk, and gave him slack when he needed it. Josh went through a lot in the war and he showed a lot of symptoms of PTSD. He made some questionable decisions in the book, but I forgave them because he was suffering. Ultimately, Skylar forgave him too. The author did a great job of writing about Josh's experience in the war and the loss of his leg. Even the sexual scene between Skylar and Josh had a lot of realism to him. Most authors would shy away from messy, realistic aspects of love with a veteran. Heather Demetrios is not one of those authors. In her acknowledgements, she talks about her family's history with the Marines and how much research went into this book. It shows. I think the acknowledgements were almost as good as the book and that is saying something since I loved this book so much. 

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy!!